Part of a Complete Breakfast: Morality, Family, and Health in Children’s Cereal

Commercials

By Emma Elizabeth Massie

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for graduation with Honors in Anthropology.

Whitman College 2017

Certificate of Approval

This is to certify that the accompanying thesis by Emma Elizabeth Massie has been accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with Honors in Anthropology.

________________________ Rachel George

Whitman College May 10, 2017

2

Table of Contents Introduction…………………………………………………………… 4

Chapter 1 Literature Review: The Anthropology of Advertising and the Anthropology

Food…………………………………………………. 17

Anthropology of Food……………………………………………17

Anthropology of Advertising …………………………………… 27

Anthropology of Cereal Advertisements ………………………. 28

Conclusion ……………………………………………………….30

Chapter 2: Indulgence and Restraint in Children’s Cereal

Commercials…………………………………………………………… 32

Introduction …………………………………………………….. 32

Morality and Food ……………………………………………… 32

History of Indulgence and Restraint…………………………….. 33

Indulgence and Restraint in Modern Day ………………………. 35

Indulgence and Restraint in Cereal Commercials………………. 40

Breakfast Cereals as Indulgent Spaces …………………………. 42

Health and Indulgence and Restraint …………………………… 44

Conclusion ………………………………………………………. 48

Chapter 3………………………………………………………………. 50

Introduction ……………………………………………………. 50

3

Anthropology of Childhood ……………………………………. 50

The Child Consumer ……………………………………………. 58

Cereal Commercial Analysis …………………………………… 60

Children, Sugar, and Health …………………………………….. 68

Conclusion ………………………………………………………. 71

Conclusion …………………………………………………………….. 72

Sources cited ……………………………………………………………76

4

Introduction

Research Question and Background

How are morality, family, and health culturally encoded in food advertisements and

more specifically, in children’s cereal advertisements? In this thesis, I argue that cereal

commercials socialize children to culturally specific norms and expectations about food and

eating. I focus on two specific norms around food and eating behavior and examine how they

function in children’s cereal advertisements. This thesis examines the ways in which cereal

commercials act as a cultural force that reinforce food norms.

My project arose from a deep curiosity about how food preferences are formed. Why

do we eat what we eat? Why is it so different all over the world? How does a group of people

decide what is healthy and what is unhealthy? In other words, I am interested in food norms

and the cultural aspects of those norms. Through my research in the anthropological literature

on food, I have noticed some major themes in how people interact with food. I want to

explore the culturally relative ways in which American families interact with food. I

discovered there is a strong attachment with food and morality, which is defined differently

across different groups. I also want to examine how food is connected to health - a culturally

relative concept. Analyzing the anthropological literature has allowed me to understand the

broad question of how food and its accompanying values are culturally relative.

I have chosen to focus on advertising because it is a specific aspect of American

culture that both reflects and reinforces cultural notions of food. Advertisements are

everywhere, displaying cultural values and reinforcing these values to their audiences. They

are emblematic of cultural notions in the US as the epitome of American capitalism (Malefyt

5

and Morais, 2012). They are a logical choice for examining relative cultural values relating to

food, as food advertising is so common.

Cereal commercials captured my attention because cereal is arguably one of the most

successful products in the US- some 95% of Americans have a box of cereal in their house

(Hollis, 2012). They are also among the first requests of young children, at 47% of first

requests, usually by brand name (McGinnis et.al., 2006). If nearly every family in the

country has this kind of food, how are commercials transmitting the message that this food

should be bought?

Cereals occupy a specific place in American family food culture. The beginning of

“ready-to-eat” cereals marked a departure from having to cook oats, eggs, etc (BBC, 2010).

This also appears to be part of a larger advent of “convenience foods”, targeted towards

“modern” families as part of their busy lives (Ochs and Beck, 2013) . This uniquely

successful American food is pervasive in children’s lives at an early age - brand awareness

occurs as early as 2 or 3 years old (McGinnis et.al., 2006). With the idea that so many

American families are affected by cereal commercials, I have analyzed commercials to see

what kinds of food ideas these commercials are transmitting to Americans.

There are a few terms that I use repeatedly that I will define. When I refer to food

norms , I am referring to culturally specific ways of eating - such as eating three meals per

day, or drinking coffee with breakfast. These norms refer to the regular, routinized way a

group of people interact with food. I also repeatedly refer to indulgence and restraint and

child-centeredness. Indulgence and restraint refer to the interplay between indulging in

luxurious or exorbitant food, and restraining oneself for moral and/or health reasons (Wilson,

6

2004). Child-centeredness, a concept first coined by Ochs (1984), refers to how families in

the US tend to adjust their lives to fit those of children, instead of expecting children to adjust

to adult lives. The anthropological literature provides a framework for analyzing how cereal

commercials define the norms of our culture.

The discovery of these themes was an enlightening moment for my project as it

proves to me that children’s cereal commercials are part of a larger cultural process present

beyond commercials - one that transmits culturally significant food norms to children at

young ages. I use the two themes of child-focused food and indulgence and restraint as the

core of my argument. Throughout this thesis, I will show how cereal commercials

demonstrate food norms to the American public. Some background literature on indulgence

and restraint and child-centeredness is discussed in this introduction, and in depth in the

respective chapters.

Methodology

My methodology began with typing in ‘cereal commercials’ into youtube, and

looking at advertisements beginning in the early 1950’s through present day. That proved to

be straightforward and yielded several collections of commercials with different cereals in

one video. The range of commercials in one video was helpful because it gave me a broad

sample to view. I admittedly focused on cereals that I remembered seeing in commercials as

a child. However, I believe these big-name brands, such as Trix and Lucky Charms, are

interesting to study because their brands are so popular. By focusing in on those commercials

I can explore the methods they use to achieve that.

7

I watched the commercials and began taking notes in minute by minute segments,

noting language used and what kinds of themes were present. In order to address my initial

research question, I looked for themes of morality, family, and health in the language and

visual representations. I saw consistent formulas through time. From the very earliest Lucky

Charms commercial to the most recent ones I found, the cartoon brand character, Lucky the

Leprechaun, is trying to evade the children, who are in search of the marshmallows in the

Lucky Charms. This surprised me, as I expected there to be a drastic change over time, but I

found cereal commercials, particularly for children, to be very formulaic going back to the

1950s. The biggest noticeable change was in style, as design technology progressed. A few

other noticeable changes are discussed later.

While listening to the language, I looked for words pertaining to morality and health

by listening for words such as “good/bad”, “healthy”, “good for you”, etc. In terms of

representation of family, I looked for depictions of family such as children and parents,

siblings, etc. I wrote notes on small segments of each commercial, both direct quotes and

notes on visual representation. I did this for 15 commercials and then narrowed down my

sample by focusing on commercials with parallel themes.

After choosing the major cereals I wanted to focus on-Trix, Lucky Charms, Cookie

Crisp, Cocoa Puffs, and Frosted Flakes - I reviewed the notes on each commercial and

highlighted common themes. I noticed a depiction of desire along with self-restraint in the

Cocoa Puffs commercial first, and connected it to a piece I read by Margaret Wilson (2004).

Her study discussed indulgence and restraint in Seattle coffee shops. I found more history

8

and background on indulgence and restraint in food culture in the other anthropological

literature, and chose to analyze this theme.

Nearly all of the cereal commercials I chose had some kind of depiction of

child-centeredness and child agency - exemplified in Trix’s slogan, “Trix are for kids!”. I

have encountered anthropological literature on child-focused language before, particularly in

Ochs. et. al. (1996), and Ochs and Schieffelin (1984) which discuss child-focused language.

From what I have read in Ochs’ work, I realize that these cereals are participating in a larger

cultural process of child-centric culture. I decided to pursue this as my second theme. It leads

to a discussion on the anthropology of childhood and how food, cereal in particular, fits into

culturally relative concepts of childhood and children’s food.

The Anthropology of Food

Food is essential to human life, but beyond survival, food is critical in many social

processes, such as how people define themselves, how families identify themselves, how

groups of people categorize their social niches, and how people morally situate themselves.

Through the lens of food, anthropologists have analyzed everything from how people

re-establish diet post-disaster (Mead, 1943) to how certain foods become identified with a

cultural sense of sensuality and quality (Menley, 2005).

Through my research, it has become evident that what people eat is is highly

dependent upon cultural context and societal pressure. Food preferences, for example, can be

socialized early in childhood. Ochs et. al. (1996) found that middle class American families

tend to focus on talking about food as sustenance, while Italian families tend to focus on

talking about food as pleasure (Ochs et. al. 1996). This kind of socialization processes

9

demonstrates how cultural context can affect food preferences. I used this as a lens to look at

cereal commercials. Cereal commercials can be viewed as an example of a socialization

process that exerts an external force on children and families, socializing them to cultural

food norms. Chapter one discusses in depth the anthropology of food and where my project

fits into it.

Advertising

A background history in advertising is critical to an understanding of how cereal

commercials act as a cultural force. Anthropology and advertising are similar in their quest to

understand human behavior (De Waal Malefyt and Morais, 2012). Anthropology seeks to

understand human behavior within its context, or its culture. Advertising seeks something

similar, but with a means to an end - advertising seeks to understand human behavior in order

to target customers and convince them to buy their product. An understanding of culture is

critical to market a product effectively. Malefyt and Morais (2012) describe advertising as

part of a “social drama”, as put forth by Victor Turner in 1974. They describe advertising as

part of this social drama in that “social dramas are regularized occurrences that rely on key

symbols and rituals as mechanisms to mediate, transform, and produce the necessary

symbolic and normative change for creativity to occur as an agency product” (Malefyt and

Morais, 2012, 36). Advertisements operate in this way because they rely on culturally

specific symbols - for example, language, values, and visual imagery that represent a group’s

qualities. This is critical to gain the patronage of a group. Branding is one way in which this

is accomplished. Branding is associating an icon with a product that represents something

more than the product itself - it has added meaning or value (Moeran, 2014). Branding is

10

critical in cereal commercials - in fact, much of the success of cereals is attributed to

branding (BBC, 2010). The characters that are represented in cereal commercials reach

children via television, and convince children of their worth. I further analyze how this

perception of worth is achieved, and what kinds of cultural values cereal commercials depict

in the process. Chapter one takes a deeper dive into the anthropology of advertising and why

it is important to consider when analyzing cereal commercials.

Indulgence and Restraint

Food is often talked about in terms of “good” and “bad”, and the consumption of food

is seen as reflective of the moral character of a person. Certain foods hold different moral

qualities throughout time and across societies for many different reasons. Indulgence,

specifically, has a rich history of moral entanglement, going all the way back to the Bible’s

seven deadly sins - one of which is gluttony (Gentilcore, 2016). Both Margaret Wilson

(2005) and Alan Warde (1997) discuss themes of indulgence and restraint in western food

discourses. Wilson talks about indulgence in Seattle coffee shops and the moral negotiation

that occurs when ordering coffee. She notices that many customers order skim milk lattes

with whipped cream. The indulgence of the whipped cream is justified by the skim milk.

Warde talks about indulgence and restraint in food commercials in the UK, exemplified in

the slogan for cream cakes, “naughty but nice”, implying that they are delicious, but

unhealthy (Warde, 1997, 90). The theme of pleasure and restraint shows up in a number of

cereal commercials I analyzed - both depicted in the commercials themselves, and in the

framing of cereal as breakfast food. These themes are not unique to commercials - they

participate in a larger American discourse about indulgence and restraint. This project

11

explores those themes in cereal commercials as a part of the process that enculturates

children to cultural notions of morality around food.

Anthropology of Childhood

My project evaluates children’s cereal commercials. In order to analyze children’s

cereal commercials, I need to look at the anthropology of childhood to understand how

cereal commercials can be interpreted within this discipline. Childhood is a culturally relative

concept. The concept of when childhood starts and ends, and what role children fill in a

society varies widely between different groups of people. For example, the Matsigenka of the

Peruvian Amazon highly value self-sufficiency in a child, and children often perform routine

tasks and chores by age four or five (Ochs and Izquierdo, 2009). In contrast, in middle-class

families in the US, parents often do chores for children in order to accomplish the task faster.

This demonstrates a difference in the roles children are expected to fill in early childhood. It

also raises an aspect of US culture that I am investigating: child-centered culture.

Child-centeredness is one of the familial themes I found depicted in commercials. As

I mentioned earlier in this chapter, child-centeredness is a cultural focus on children rather

than a focus on adults. Ochs and Izqueirdo (2009) have have documented the child-centric

nature of the U.S. in their study between Samoa, Matsigenka, and American language

socialization. They note that in the US, adults cater to and compensate for children, as

opposed to expecting children to adapt to adult behavior. This concept is also discussed by

Lancy (2008) in his analysis of the U.S. as neontocracy. This term refers to U.S. culture that

favors children rather than adults, putting the needs of children before adults. While studying

families and child-centeredness, it is critical to note that the literature I evaluated was

12

specifically among middle-class and primarily white Americans. While race and

socioeconomic status are implicated in food discourse, most of the anthropological literature

by Ochs and others on child-centeredness is focused on middle-class Americans, so I can

only extrapolate from that demographic. To see how childhood varies across socioeconomic

status, see Lareau (2003). I analyzed cereal commercials as a culturally specific way in which

middle-class children are socialized to child-centered models of culture. Furthermore, I

analyze a paradoxical notion of childhood responsibility depicted in cereal commercials.

Chapter three discusses these topics as part of a broader discourse in the US.

Health, Morality, and Family

Morality, health, and family are themes I look for in food commercials. Morality

strikes me as something that is entrenched in talking about food. I hear peers talk about

“being bad” when they indulge, or “being good” when they eat something healthy. It strikes

me as significant that food is so connected with the moral quality of a person. By tuning into

this kind of language in cereal commercials, I looked for patterns that may show how

children are socialized to food as morally charged. By looking for patterns of family in

commercials, I noticed how the commercials I selected are child-specific. This is significant

to me because it suggests that children have a different set of food norms in the US, and I

want to see how cereal commercials reinforce this assumption. The implications of these

food norms are relevant to childhood health. How are children’s cereals framed as healthy

breakfast food when there is so much evidence for their lack of nutritional value (Harris,

2011)?

13

Childhood obesity and lifestyle diseases have become problematic in recent decades.

Studies have shown that as of 2005, about 66% of adults are overweight, with 34% of them

obese (Adler and Stewart 2009). Between the years of 1963 to 2002, rates of obesity tripled

for children ages 6-11 (McGinnis et.al., 2006). The most recent data from the CDC estimates

that closer to 36% of adults in the US are obese (CDC, 2016). The most recent available data

from the CDC estimates that for children ages 2-19 years, obesity rates are at about 17%.

Furthermore, excessive weight is related to an increase in type 2 diabetes, hypertension, heart

disease, and cancer. Several authors have also noted the connection between advertising and

food choices, connecting positive reactions with advertised food (Goldberg 1990, Dixon

2007). The connection between health and advertising can be viewed through a cultural lens:

advertising, which is a part of cultural production, affects how people make decisions about

food, which in turn affects their health.

Health is a culturally relative concept. Alder and Stewart (2009) put forth two models

of understanding health. The first is a medical model, in line with dominant American

biomedical practice. The medical model focuses on the individual’s decisions about their

health as the primary reason for obesity, and focuses on “curing” the disease. The public

health model looks at the root causes of obesity, and focuses on preventative measures. It

also does not place all the blame on the individual person’s decisions. These two models

bring up questions about advertising as part of a public health discussion. Harris et. al.(2009)

asserts that advertising food directly affects the health of those who watch food commercials.

This suggests there is already a potential causal link between increasing obesity and food

advertisements.

14

The biomedical framework of obesity often puts obesity and so-called “lifestyle”

diseases in line with personal failing and immorality, thus equating obesity itself with

immorality. The public health model of obesity frames it as part of larger cultural forces,

both physical and social. This model recognizes that obesity and lifestyle diseases occur

within a larger environmental context. Cereal commercials can be viewed in light of both of

these frameworks. Cereal commercials nearly always state, towards the end of the

commercial, that the cereal contains ‘essential vitamins and minerals’, while also advertising

agency in their commercials - such as when children need to regain the cereals from

characters that steal it. This kind of agency advertises a framework that reinforces personal

decision in choosing cereal. However, commercials themselves are part of a larger public

health framework in that they enculturate consumers to the belief that cereal is breakfast. It is

useful to evaluate this relationship through an anthropological lens. Food choices can be

framed as a personal decision, but that decision is informed by a bombardment of

information from advertisement, popular culture, and even government laws (Harris et al.

2009). While commercials frame cereal choice as a personal decision, they are part of a

cultural force that transmits messages to children and families about what is healthy and what

is moral, and that is embodied in the physical manifestation of what we eat.

Conclusion

The first chapter of this thesis offers a detailed background of the anthropology of

food and the anthropology of advertising, two overarching and overlapping areas of study.

My second chapter examines indulgence and restraint, and about how they are part of a

historical and contemporary food script. I talk about how indulgence and restraint are present

15

in cereal commercials that I observed, and how that fits into a cultural discourse of food

norms, as well as a form of socialization to these norms. My third chapter concerns

child-centeredness and family and how those themes are depicted in children’s cereal

commercials and socialize viewers to a child-centered model of culture.

Cereal commercials need to be examined in the context of advertising overall as they

reflect and represent food norms in the US. Looking at advertising through the lens of

cultural anthropology allows us to see how food preferences are affected by culture. I choose

to focus on child-centeredness and indulgence and restraint because these are two themes that

I observed in cereal commercials. I found these food norms in the anthropological literature,

so my analysis uses these frameworks to examine these cereal commercials. This project has

implications for how food norms in the US might affect food choices and the possible health

outcomes of these choices. I explore these implications in both analysis chapters and discuss

them in the conclusion.

16

Chapter 1

Literature Review: The Anthropology of Advertising and the Anthropology of Food

This chapter details the anthropological background on food and advertising. It

discusses the broader aspects of the anthropology of food and the anthropology of

advertising, and then evaluates how these two fields are related and how my research

questions are relevant to these two fields. Anthropologists have found that food is a crucial

way that groups of people define themselves and structure their daily lives. Through studying

advertising, anthropologists have found that advertising often both shapes and represents

public perception of a product. An anthropological study of food advertising can be

examined through the intersection of these two areas of study. I studied food advertisements

so that I could explore how a public representation affects people’s perception of food.

Through an understanding of how people perceive children's cereals, I extrapolate how that

food participates in cultural discourses. This chapter gives background in these two areas of

study and then explains how my thesis participates in both areas.

The Anthropology of Food

Food is much more than what we eat for sustenance. Cuisines are often seen as

emblematic of a group of people, integral to their identity- for example, though corn was

once considered a “peasant food”, it is now crucial to both the diet and expression of

Mexican culture (Pilcher, 1998). Food not only represents a society, but can come to

represent specific cultural values. In Denmark, rye bread constitutes an important cultural

dish, and its consumption is associated with being a moral citizen (Karrebæk, 2012). Even

the way we eat our food - standing, sitting at a table, or on the floor - is indicative of cultural

17

values. Anthropologists look at food rituals and ask questions such as: What does this group

of people value? How is that expressed in their food rituals? Do they sit down together, thus

valuing time spent together, eating in a common space? Do they cook together? Does one

particular family member cook? Who is that and why? The questions are endless and have

endless potential for anthropological inquiry.

Early anthropologists and other social theorists such as Margaret Mead, Mary

Douglas, Claude Levi-Strauss, and Pierre Bourdieu laid the foundation for many areas of

food anthropology today. Well before many popular anthropological theories had been

established, Mead noted problems with nutrition and eating (Mead, 1943). Mead uses her

anthropological background to discuss nutrition of the world in the age of globalization. Her

work represents some of the first in the field of this nature. This work discusses how

changing a group of people’s food habits has to be looked at within a culturally relative

context. She points out that “food habits are seen as the culturally standardized set of

behaviors” (Mead, 1943,18). She argues that if a large group of people's food habits are to be

changed, they must be changed within the specific cultural context of the smaller constituent

groups. Levi-Strauss (1968) looked at food through a linguistic anthropology lens by

establishing ideals of the dichotomy between the ‘raw’, the ‘cooked’, and the ‘rotted’.

Levi-Strauss analyzed these delineations as marking the difference between nature and

culture. For example, cooking something is a transformation from raw, which is the natural

form, to cooked, which indicates culture in that it necessitates cultural objects such as pots.

Other social theorists have noted how food marks distinctions of class (Bourdieu, 1984), and

rituals of eating (Douglas, 1972). Douglas’ Deciphering a Meal took up similar themes to

18

Levi-Strauss and used symbolism as a way to decode what meals mean to different cultures.

Douglas asked some of the most crucial questions that still are asked in the anthropology of

food today, such as why certain food categories are employed, and when, how, and who

employs them. In the broadest sense, this is where the heart of the anthropology of food lies.

Since the early days of food anthropology, many anthropologists have built on the

field in groundbreaking ways, exploring everything from sugar’s moral baggage (Mintz,

1996) to popular conceptions of fat intake across cultures (Kulick and Menley, 2005), to

class distinction through food (Counihan, 1999). Anthropologists have even described how

different areas of countries have different foods that are indelibly connected to a sense of

identity and value of that area - Tuscan olive oil from Tuscany, Italy, prized for artisanal

production and quality, is not only an identifier of cultural identity but also of craftsmanship

(Menley, 2005). Seattle residents hold coffee and the ritual of drinking it as vital to the

identity of a Seattle resident (Wilson, 2005). Cajun cooking is considered critical to Southern

US identity, and clam chowder a beloved part of New England cuisine (Mintz, 1996). These

items are thought to carry a kind of cultural quality of the region - for example, the highly

prized quality of olive oil in Tuscany represents cultural values of sensuality, quality, and

artisanal practice and dedication, which are highly valued in Tuscan culture (Menley, 2005).

Karrebæk’s (2012) analysis of rye bread in Danish schools noted that rye bread was

considered extremely important, not only for health, but also for cultural identity. School

teachers criticized children for bringing other foods, such as white bread or sugary foods,

citing that rye bread was healthier. Furthermore, the decline of rye bread in Denmark was

equated with a decline in cultural values, emphasizing how these people saw this food as

19

crucial to the formation of moral values. “You are what you eat” takes on an entirely

different meaning in the context of looking at food choices through the anthropological lens.

Hannah Garth’s volume Food and Identity in the Caribbean (2012) explores different

ways in which identity in the Caribbean is forged through food. In this volume, Ryan Schact

discusses how the Makushi of southwestern Guyana and northern Brazil forged their identity

through the cultivation and preparation of the cassava plant, a staple tuber of the region. The

preparation of cassava was pivotal in their gendered division of labor as well as in an

assertion of a unique ethnic identity. This is one process of how a specific food defines daily

activities and social norms. Hanna Garth’s contribution details how Cuban multi-ethnic

identity was symbolized by food, namely the Cuban stew ajiaco. This stew’s ingredients

represented the rich history of Cuba, and was iconic of the blending of its cultures. However,

Garth notes that within the complex climate of their socialist state, now much of their food is

imported. Now, the collective identity that makes food “Cuban” revolves around how the

food is prepared - in groups of family and friends who use Cuban seasoning to transform the

imported foods into something that is representative of Cuba.

Food is also central in politics and power, both in the way it is made and the way in

which it is is regulated. Eric Slosser (2001) details how, to meet the constant demand of

meat in the US, the meat processing industry pushes meat packers beyond their physical

limits to ensure maximum productivity. This kind of physical labor leads workers to

experience extreme physical disability, and employers bar any attempts at medical

compensation by manipulating their workers into signing away their right to sue the

company. This is an instance of how food politics plays out in a unique setting - the constant

20

drive for productivity and Americans’ demand for meat in their diets allow this kind of

imbalance of power to occur.

Penny Van Esterik (1997) discusses a less insidious, though pertinent, example of

how power dynamics affect food consumption - specifically, the politics of breastfeeding.

Van Esterik analyzes how the baby formula industry was formed in the mid 20th century and

marketed to parents as an alternative to breastfeeding. The popularization of formula led to

an uproar over suspicions that formula was leading to malnutrition of infants. Van Esterik

analyzes this uproar through different political and social channels and looks at the power

balance implicated in big formula companies versus individual women breastfeeding. She

identifies a power struggle propagated by large companies as they tried to demonized

breastfeeding to increase profits from formula. This power struggle lead to contradictions in

the public’s attitude about breastfeeding in the US. Breastfeeding is entrenched in both social

and biological processes, and Van Esterik discusses how these two processes, both critical

for human survival and deeply culturally implicated, affect one another in the context of a

cultural power struggle.

Food anthropologists examine not only the cultural identity and politics of that food,

but also the complex relationship of food to the body. One example of this is how both men

and women seek to control their bodies through consumption. Brumberg (1988) dates

anorexia and bulimia back to Victorian England where lack of eating was “in style”. The thin

ideal of the 18th century European led many young women to control their calories

obsessively to starve themselves into the acceptable cultural ideal. Bordo (1993) details how

the psychopathology of anorexics in the US, in particular, women, is deeply ingrained in

21

cultural values of thinness and personal control. Chapter three examines in more depth the

issues of indulgence and restraint and how controlling food has become a cultural matter. In

her book on how gender, meaning and power are understood through food practices,

Counihan (1999) discusses a number of ways in which consumption and the body are related.

For example she details how in a study of her own college students, she found that both men

and women associated consumption of food and their bodily image with power and control.

This was particularly relevant when consumption was limited to keep the body within

culturally acceptable norms. Rebecca Popenoe (2004) details how the thin ideal is not the

same throughout the world. Among the Arabs of Niger, there is high premium on women’s

obesity as a symbol of abundant consumption and the ability to forgo work. This contrasts

with the current Euro-western ideal of thinness as desirable, and is an alternative instance of

how cultural values affect food consumption and the relationship of food to the body.

It is informative to examine the relationship between the body and food and health

implications within the US. An ideal body type in the US is not necessarily the ideal body

type all over the world, as these scholars have demonstrated. Therefore, the concept of health

is also not universal. This anthropological analysis is instructive to apply to the discussion on

health, as health is clearly not a universal concept.

When reading the literature on the anthropology of food, it is clear that that other

anthropologists have written about similar themes to those in the commercials I analyzed.

This led me to explore indulgence and restraint and child-centeredness as my two main

themes, and analyze how these themes participate in a food discourse in the US. I discuss

22

these themes as a part of larger cultural discourse about food norms and their consequences

in society.

In his work, Alan Warde (1997) employs the anthropological concepts of indulgence

and restraint in his discussion of food and cultural identity. Warde discusses the

contradictions in indulging oneself at the same time as restraining oneself - enacted in culture

through a script of a “guilty pleasure” when indulging. He also discusses repression

necessary to exert control over the body through food, primarily for women. He argues that

this script affects how people see themselves as moral citizens. Margaret Wilson (2005)

explores a moral contradiction between indulgence and restraint in the US. Wilson observed

cafe dwellers in Seattle tempering their indulgences - a skim milk latte, but with whipped

cream added to it, or a cinnamon roll with the butter or frosting put aside. While customers in

the cafe desired to indulge by “treating themselves” with whipped cream, they also restrained

themselves by taking the coffee with skim milk. By tempering one’s indulgence with

restraint it makes the decision more morally acceptable. In her work, Carole Counihan (1999)

explores how personal restraint is related to a higher moral standing.

Cereals’ relationship to indulgence is rooted in its origins in the Seventh-Day

adventist church. Ready-to-eat breakfast cereal itself was invented in the early 20th century

in a Seventh-Day Adventist sanatorium by the Kellogg brothers (Hollis 2012). It was

originally the picture of restraint - a plain, nearly tasteless grain nugget that was meant to

feed the patients of the Sanatorium as well as uphold Adventist principles. Seventh-day

Adventism, a sect of the Christian church, has an immense focus on restraint from indulgent

things. It upholds that followers of Adventism should refrain from alcohol, sugar, caffeine,

23

and meat so as not to pollute the body, or “God’s Temple” (Dennis Wholey, 2007).

Ready-to-eat cereals were originally adherent to those principles; a plain, easy breakfast that

fed the many patients of the sanatorium. However, the younger Kellogg brother, W.K.

Kellogg, decided to capitalize on the invention and add sugar to it to make it a marketable

product (Hollis, 2012). The elder brother, John Harvey Kellogg, at first did not like the idea

of corrupting his invention with sugar, but the potential for making a profit won out in the

end. W.K. Kellogg added sugar to these grain nuggets and made the first box of cornflakes in

1908 - which, according to the BBC 2010 documentary, The Age of Plenty, was cereal’s

moment of “original sin” (BBC, 2010). Cereal is even rooted in “sin” tied to sugar in the

early days of its invention. The beginning of cereal started by exploiting the ideal of

indulgence while simultaneously being healthy, a ‘cake and eat it too’ scenario.

Mintz (1996) discusses a pervasive theme of morality around sugar specifically. His

work analyzes sugar historically and contemporarily as part of a discourse on morality and

food. The children’s cereal commercials I analyzed are for the most part for sugar-laden

cereals, so this analysis of sugar is relevant when I examine how sugar is portrayed in

commercials.

Elinor Ochs et. al. (1996) discusses how language surrounding meals and indulgence

in the US is different compared to language in Italy. Italian families in her study tended to

talk about food in terms of mutual enjoyment of the main courses, with an emphasis on

eating the food for pleasure. US families, by contrast, tended to focus more on food as

sustenance, encouraging children to eat their dinner as a kind of duty or justification for

indulging in dessert.

24

Samira Kawash’s (2013) analyzes candy and how indulgence, restraint, and sugar are

connected, specifically among children. Kawash discusses how candy and sugar came to be

associated with children - Halloween being a prime example of this phenomenon. The

relationship between children and sugar is often equated with a kind of lack of self-restraint

of children and the need for self-restraint in adults. Candy is for kids, and adults who eat

candy often do so under a the guise of secrecy or a guilty pleasure. This kind of analysis is

relevant to my area of study because I am focusing on how children’s cereal commercials

designate cereal, in particular sugared cereals, as children’s food. Sugar and sugary foods in

US culture are associated with childhood. Sugar has become a central (and acceptable) way

we market nutrition to children. Corporations have become complicit in the re-invention of

nutritional norms as a way to maximize profits.

Jennifer Patico and Eriberto P. Lozada discuss how children’s food has been

constructed as a special category in American society. Children’s food emerged as a new

market in the early 20th century, partially as a way to increase restaurant and food sales in

response to the drop in revenue due to prohibition. Some scholars, such as Amy Bentley

(2014), have suggested that the creation of separate children’s food a plays a crucial part in

shaping taste preferences for highly processed foods later in life. Cereal commercials and the

consumption of children's cereal are implicated in children’s food preferences and long-term

health outcomes.

The anthropology of food lies at the intersection of so many disciplines - food

politics, expression of power, control, ethnic identity, language, and cultural values and

morals. This thesis examines overlapping themes of food culture. It seeks to examine the way

25

children’s cereal commercials create and reinforce cultural values. Cultural values in turn

shape food preferences and the cycle continues.

Anthropology of Advertising

The literature around anthropology and advertising tends to focus on two main areas

of thought: how anthropology can explain advertising, and how it participates in it.

Anthropology can both study advertising as a facet of human culture, and actively participate

in advertising goals. From an academic viewpoint, advertising both creates and reflects

culture. In their introduction to Advertising Cultures (2003), Timothy D. Malefyt and Brian

Moeran notes:

“if anthropologists write culture, as (Steven) Kemper points out, then advertising produces it. What advertising executives say about different kinds of people, and the images with which they endow them, are found in advertising campaigns that are watched, read, and listened to by those very same people” (Malefyt and Moeran, 2003: 15).

In other words, advertising both shapes public belief and is dependent on it.

Advertising can be seen as a part of human culture in that it represents and reproduces

prevailing values. Products that are advertised are emblematic of what people value in a

certain time and place; for example, an advertisement for a particular car in the US in the

1950s will look very different from an advertisement for a car in Japan in the early 2000s, but

will signify the kind of material culture, language, and ideological beliefs of that time and

place.

Anthropology has looked at advertising as a kind of magic, capable of transforming

“commodities into glamorous signifiers” (Moeran, 2014). These commodities can signify

anything - masculinity, health, power, beauty. By representing transformative power, these

commodities thus take on the power to cure ills - makeup can ‘cure’ imperfection, a fast car

26

can ‘cure’ emasculation. Thus advertising must not only be able to transform a commodity

into something to cure the ills of society, but it must also understand what ills need be cured.

Understanding what is happening in society at the time is important to effectively market a

product. For example, Marianne Elisabeth Lien (2003) discusses how a Norwegian

convenience food company saw the demand for convenience food that was both tasty and

healthy. The demand appeared to arise from an increase in a “busy” lifestyle, characterized

by constant activities and responsibilities. The convenience food was generally a type of

foreign food, particularly pasta, marketed in order to ‘cure’ the ills of a busy lifestyle devoid

of exoticism. The foreign food was marketable not only because it was convenient, but

because its foreign-ness gave it an exotic appeal, ‘curing’ the repetitive lifestyle of eating the

same thing everyday.

Advertising also establishes brand loyalty with the anthropological model of ‘magic’

(Moeran, 2014). Brand loyalty occurs when a consumer exclusively buys one brand. Brand

loyalty and preference convinces consumers that a certain brand will ‘cure’ one’s ‘ills’ better

than another (Moeran, 2014). Robert J. Foster (2007) talks about brand loyalty as charging a

premium price for an “emotional resonance” (pg 708). Foster posits that value is found in a

specific brand because branding is carefully cultivated to convince the consumer that that

brand is uniquely qualified for the task at hand, and therefore a surplus charge can be added

as the price for quality assurance. For example, Foster identifies a woman who exclusively

purchased one type of laundry detergent - consistent in her belief that this brand would ‘cure’

the ‘ill’ of dirty clothes better than any other brand. Models such as these can be used when

analyzing cereal commercials as part of discourse.

27

Anthropology of Cereal Advertisements

Analyzing cereal advertising requires an understanding of anthropology of food and

the anthropology of advertising. Anthropology has already established that there are food

norms and rituals present throughout time and space, and these norms and rituals are subject

to cultural values as well as what is happening in a particular time in history. Cereal

advertising is one small piece of those norms - a piece of American culture that exemplifies

prevalent food norms and rituals, and reinforces them by transmitting them to the public.

Advertising is one way in which food is transformed into a cultural icon. Advertising

essentially took cereal from bland grain flakes to one of the most successful foods of all time

(BBC, 2010). Advertising, particularly to children, ‘magically’ transformed a food through

identification with the brand characters. Sugared cornflakes wouldn’t be remarkable if it

weren’t for Tony the Tiger. The 2010 BBC special, “The Age of Plenty”, discusses how, by

identifying with cartoon characters, cereals created an emotional bond - the emotional

resonance that Moeran and Foster discuss. By associating and falling in love with Tony the

Tiger, Lucky the Leprechaun, Chip the Wolf, and the Cuckoo Bird, they became emotionally

attached to the character and the food itself. This is obvious when we think about how much

more popular brand-name cereals are than off-brand cereals. Advertisers know well that our

decisions are often more emotionally driven than fact-based and they capitalize on this fact.

By targeting kids who watch TV, cereal brands establish a base of consumers that

prefer brand products. This is consistent with what research has found about watching

commercials and food preferences. McGinnis et. al. (2003) note that most first requests are

by brand name. This level of brand loyalty demonstrates the power of transformative

28

advertising. Referring back to Moeran’s work, the cartoon characters in cereal commercials

convince consumers that the brand cereal, such as Lucky Charms, can “cure” the ill of

breakfast food better than any other cereal - for Lucky Charms, the slogan even says,

“they’re magically delicious!” Many of them sell a literal transformation through the

consumption of cereal - the transformation that is promised with the purchase. They convince

consumers through transformative power - such as in a Frosted Flakes commercial from the

early 2000s (fig.1) (Wutaii1 Nostalgia, 2016). This commercial featured Tony the Tiger as

very scared to jump off a high dive, but after the Frosted Flakes, he find the courage to jump.

This is just one example of how cereal commercials are selling a literal transformation

through consuming a product - the Frosted Flakes are literally ‘curing’ the fear from Tony

the Tiger, just as Moeran discusses.

Fig. 1 (2000s)

Cereal commercials posses another fundamental transformative power - the power to

transform something that is not breakfast into breakfast. Often children’s breakfast food

comes in the form of food that isn’t usually considered breakfast. This is discussed further in

both chapters two and three. In the context of advertising, the commercial must effectively

transforms the cereal from one thing to another - for example, from a dessert to a breakfast

food. Typically, many of the ingredients of cereals are designated to dessert - such as sugar

29

frosting, chocolate, cookies, and marshmallows. However, advertising transforms these items

into breakfast. The most obvious of these transformations is in the Cookie Crisp commercial.

The Cookie Crisp commercial consistently pitches the phrase “it looks like chocolatey chip

cookies, tastes like them too, but it's a breakfast cereal!” (fig.2) (Oldies Vids, 2005). Despite

the relatively small difference, the commercial effectively transforms a cookie into breakfast

cereal by advertising it as such. For example, the bottom two pictures simply display it as a

cereal, particularly being eaten by children, falling in their bowls from the sky. This

transforms it from a cookie to a breakfast in the simplest way - by showing it in cereal bowl.

A picture is worth a thousand words, and we are willing to buy this transformation based on

what is depicted.

Fig. 2 (2000s)

Conclusion

Researching the anthropology of food and the anthropology of advertising helps us

understand how food and advertising participate in and inform cultural values and norms.

Food is connected to so many social processes beyond just eating; advertising is more than

just getting people to buy things. Mealtimes often structure daily activities, certain foods are

30

connected with a sense of cultural identity, and certain foods are connected with certain

moral qualities. Advertisements depict cultural values of the time and place they exist in.

These characteristics of food and advertising could not be understood in isolation.

Anthropology offers insight into how food and advertising participate in cultural discourses,

and therefore can offer insight into the consequences of those discourses.

31

Chapter 2 Indulgence and Restraint in Children’s Cereal Commercials

Introduction

In this chapter, I analyze a discourse of indulgence and restraint that endows food

with moral qualities. My data set is a collection of cereal commercials from the 1950s

through the 2000s. These commercials are an example of a culturally significant force that

socializes populations, particularly children, to norms of enjoyment around food. These

commercials can be considered cultural norms - a way in which norms about food and eating

are conveyed to people. This chapter begins with a history of how indulgence and restraint

relate to food and consumption, and then it analyzes modern discourses around this discourse

in food. After the background is established, I will discuss how themes of indulgence and

restraint are present in cereal commercials, and explore why that can be considered

socialization. Finally, I analyze how these cereal commercials are implicated in this

discourse. Indulgence comes with certain cultural food norms - such as during holidays, in

coffee shops, and during times of stress. I will argue that cereals fall into one of these spaces,

and lay out how these commercials present them as an acceptable breakfast food.

Morality and Food

In the most basic terms, Americans often talk of food as being either “good” or “bad”

for you, endowing that food with a moral quality. Healthy food is food that is “good for you”,

usually physically, while unhealthy food is “bad” for you. We talk of feeling guilty for eating

certain foods, “cheating” on our diets, and eating “sinfully good” foods. We talk of how

terrible we are for eating sweets and desserts, and how we give in to the foods that are bad

32

for us because we are “weak”. This kind of moral discourse creates and reinforces popular

conceptions of food and morality. Certain spaces can be created to make indulgence

acceptable - like designating mac and cheese as “comfort food” or eggnog as “holiday food”.

These foods are examples of food norms wherein indulgence and restraint are crucial. Others

food norms are subtle, but deeply ingrained - desserts are foods with high sugar and fat, such

as cakes, cookies, pies, ice cream, etc. Comfort foods are eaten in times of distress,

barbecuing is for the summer, Christmas cookies are to be made during the holiday season,

and wine is for adults. Warde (1997) notes that norms are only created if there are ways to

break them. For example, one can only be “sinful” and drink eggnog if there was a cultural

rule that prohibits that behavior - drinking that eggnog in July. This is often depicted in

popular culture in magazines and on television. For example, one “In-Shape” magazine

features the words “lose ten pounds this month - guilt-free and comfort foods (lose weight

and still indulge!)”(Herbst, 2014). The magazine cover reflects this because it addresses both

the desire to restrain in order to lose weight, and the desire to indulge. The term “guilt-free”

is crucial because it is necessary to uphold the weight loss, which is the depiction of restraint.

In order to indulge and still restrain in this culturally acceptable form, you must consume

“guilt-free” foods. To understand where food norms regarding indulgence and restraint come

from, we must look at the historical and contemporary context.

History of Indulgence and Restraint

Certain foods hold different moral qualities throughout time for many different

reasons. As discussed in the introduction, indulgence has a history of moral entanglement

dating back to the Bible’s seven deadly sins - one of which is gluttony. Gluttony, which is

33

essentially overt over-indulgence, has long been thought to cause many problems, including

poor health and bad religious standing (Gentilcore, 2016). Early doctors in 16th-century

England frequently prescribed simple diets, free of fatty, sugary, indulgent foods, to treat

medical ailments. Keith Thomas, a historian (1997), traces the moral denouncement of

indulgence in modern-day America to early Europe and religious ideals. He calls it “the latest

version of an age-old association between illness and sin” that began with the rise of religion

and urbanization in the early 15th century (Thomas, 1997, 16). Historically, the seven deadly

sins were all attached to some kind of bodily failing - gluttony, in particular, linked to

swelling of the body and belly. When people fell ill, they were encouraged to question their

moral standing - what had they done to deserve this? Furthermore, it was the individual’s job

to preserve their health by eating properly - to fail was to indulge oneself into illness and was

close to “self-murder” (Thomas, 1997, 18). Gout, a disease often associated with

overindulgence and obesity, was considered a “predictable reward for over-indulgence in rich

food and strong drink” (Thomas, 1997, 25). Even more telling, Thomas cites a Protestant

Priest from 1644 who preached a philosophy that “no fat person could get to heaven”, due to

their sinful indulgences. Indulgence wasn’t just seen as ungodly and unsightly - it also

literally led to physical illness. Indulging in bad habits, such as a sweet tooth, was thought to

lead to disease and misfortune, from coming down with the flu, to falling in mud. The

prescribed way to take care of diseases and bad luck was to control what was controllable -

diet, exercise, and emotions, to name a few. Essentially the way to control the ungodly and

unhealthy path of indulgence - was through restraint.

34

This kind of restraint wasn’t just for personal betterment - it could lead down a holy

path. Historically, starving oneself was associated with being closer to God (Thomas, 1997).

People, usually women, who starved themselves could become saints due to their moral

superiority. In the early 20th century in Portugal, Saint Alexandria of Balasar supposedly

survived for more than ten years without any food or sustenance of any kind (Gemzoe,

2005). Her rejection of food and extreme piety led to her sainthood upon her death. People

from all around the world came to Balasar to see Alexandria immortalized in sainthood. Her

rejection of indulgence and her extreme restraint elevated her to the status of a Holy person.

These ideals can be traced back to the religious ideals of indulgence as morally abhorrent - if

indulgence is a sin, restraining oneself leads to being a saint.

Indulgence and restraint as moral values followed western culture. During

prohibition in 1920s America, ice cream parlors became popular places to meet and socialize

as alternatives to saloons (Wilson, 2005). They became associated with immoral behavior

that lead young women astray. The immoral behavior came from a belief that overt overt

enjoyment of the ice cream was unrestrained and therefore immoral. The connection with

indulgence and immorality is still found in modern US food discourse.

Indulgence and Restraint Today

Over-indulgence carries a stigma left over from the early ideals of indulgence as a

sin, with the metaphor of “indulgence as sin” pervading language. Taken to the extreme,

modern-day anorexics, or people (usually women) starve themselves because of intense

pressure to conform to a society that condemns being overweight (Counihan, 1999).

Something overly indulgent is often called sinful, and often eating for pleasure in general is

35

considered bad (Counihan 1999). This is exhibited in discourse around food. For example,

one McDonald’s commercial features the phrase “the thing you want when you order salad”

(Lerner, 2016) (fig. 4), implying that ordering salad is denying the desire for a burger.

Another commercial features a Reese's peanut butter cup with the phrase, “do not deny your

dark side”, implying that enjoying chocolate and peanut butter is bad, but should be indulged

nevertheless (fig. 5) (Kingsley, 2017). This is a unique cultural characteristic of the US that

contrasts with other places, such as Italy, where eating for pleasure is highly valued (Ochs et.

al. 1996). As previously mentioned, in their study of dinners in Italy and the US, Ochs et. al.

found that Italian families talked far more about food as pleasure, while American families

focused on food as sustenance and reward. Sustenance and reward are similar to indulgence

and restraint sustenance is what one needs to survive and to earn the reward, which is the

indulgence.

Fig. 4 (2013) Fig. 5 (2009)

Alan Warde discusses indulgence and restraint in his book, Consumption, Food and

Taste: Culinary Antinomies and Commodity Culture (1997). While his analysis is primarily

in the UK and not the US , the fact that both are English-speaking, industrialized Anglican

36

countries allowed me to draw parallels. Warde discusses the contradictions in indulging

oneself at the same time as restraining oneself - think of the discourse of “I never eat this -

this is just a treat”. As mentioned earlier, in some cases, the immoral nature of indulgence

was touted as that food’s best qualities - such as the 1990’s UK’s slogan for fresh cream

cakes, “naughty but nice” (Ward, 1997, 90). Here, the immoral nature of the indulgence is

also a nice quality - it is delicious, but naughty. Furthermore, the naughty is necessary to

justify the nice - it can’t just be nice, because it is indulgent. Warde notes that in Britain in

the 20th century, there was a rise in health awareness in magazines at the same time as there

was an affinity for advertisements to display indulgence. He explains this as “self-discipline

is only required if people are inclined, encouraged, or tempted to break norms” (Warde,

1997, 90). As cultural awareness arose around low-fat and diet foods, so did an affinity for

breaking those norms. His research in magazines in the UK noted that there was a 4% rise in

“explicit recommendations to indulgence” between the 1960s and 1990s, as well as a similar

increase in implicit references (Warde, 1997, 90). Alongside that increase, there was an

increase in the health information of food, from 4% of advertisements that explicitly

advertised health food in the 60s to 16% in the 90s. This contradiction brings up the tension

between indulging and restraining - the necessity to indulge is only present with the restraint

in the first place.

In her 2005 article, Margaret Wilson explores a moral contradiction between

indulgence and restraint in the US. She observes a desire to restrain along with the desire to

indulge, similar to observations collected by Warde in the late 20th century. Wilson collected

observations of cafe dwellers in Seattle negotiating the line between their indulgences - a

37

skim milk latte, but with whipped cream added to it, or a cinnamon roll with the butter or

frosting put aside. While customers in the cafe desired to indulge by treating themselves with

whipped cream, they also desired to restrain themselves by taking the coffee with skim milk.

This coffee was presented as a morally acceptable indulgence - while coffee isn’t really

healthy, it is an acceptable taboo to break. Wilson is pointing to the need to have a reason to

break norms - in this case, the coffee shop is a designated space to indulge. Wilson relates

this back to the prohibition phenomenon. This phenomenon seems to be part of a pattern of

“finely tuned guilt, repression, and desire” (Wilson, 2005, 165). When one indulgence

became illegal, populations turned to another one. In a sense, Wilson is relating the coffee

shop to the ice-cream parlor - a special space where indulgence is accepted, but restrained.

Coffee is indulgent because you can add whipped cream, but not too indulgent with skim

milk.

There are many other spaces where indulging is acceptable - comfort food, for

example. Locher et. al. did a project at the University of Alabama exploring what kinds of

food students brought in when told to bring “comfort food” (Locher, et. al. 2005). The idea of

comfort food is riddled with indulgence and restraint. Even the Oxford English dictionary

defines comfort food as “food that comforts or affords solace; hence, any food (frequently

with a high sugar or carbohydrate content) that is associated with childhood or with home

cooking.” (Oxford English Dictionary, 1997). The formal definition of comfort food

designates it as an indulgence - food with high sugar and/or carbs. Students in the study often

designated unhealthy foods- such as chips, cookies, macaroni and cheese, and pies as

“comfort foods”, specifying that they were only consumed during certain times of stress that

38

necessitated comforting. Many students described comfort foods as foods they would

otherwise never eat, but that they needed during a time of great stress. In this case, these

foods are put into a category of comfort food, which often justified their consumption. In this

way, comfort food can also be defined as food that is otherwise not sanctioned but is justified

by the title of comfort food (Locher et. al. 2005). Cereals can be viewed in terms of that idea

- a space where that food might not otherwise be eaten, but is. This concept is analyzed in

depth later in this chapter.

Indulgence and restraint can also be viewed in terms of food as a reward. Food as a

reward has been noted by Ochs et. al. (1996) and Locher et. al. (2005) to be more common in

the US and the UK than in other developed countries. Food as reward reoccurs extremely

frequently in American culture. Dinner is usually talked about in terms of what “needs to be

eaten” before dessert, and eating dessert before your meal is morally unacceptable (Ochs et.

al. 1996). Wilson (2005) observed multiple cafe dwellers who justified their coffee with or

without cream as acceptable because they stay active or worked hard that day. Locher et. al.

also described a number of foods in her study as comfort foods because of their association

with a reward. For example, two males from her survey picked M&Ms as comfort food

because their mother would use them to teach them basic arithmetic, and then let them eat the

M&Ms when they achieved their goal. The association with the reward was comforting to

these two men. Food as reward is also present in the absence of eating - many people restrain

themselves from eating, and then reward themselves with food for their restraint. This

relationship demonstrates the chicken-and-egg situation of indulgence and restraint - the

39

reward is only a reward because of the restraint, and the restraint is only a restraint because

of the reward. These themes recurrently show up in cereal commercials since the 1950s.

Indulgence and Restraint in Cereal Commercials (1950s-2000s)

The theme of pleasure as needing to be restrained showed up in a number of cereal

commercials I analyzed. For example, the Coco Puffs commercials feature an orange

“cuckoo” bird that has to go through a series of repressive acts in order to avoid giving into

the indulgent flavor of Cocoa Puffs. One specific commercial from the early 2000s featured

the bird riding an elevator and saying: “to keep me from going cuckoo for the more

chocolatey taste of cocoa puffs, I’m going to ride up and down in this elevator ALL day,”

(fig. 6) (Wutaii1 Nostalgia, 2000s). As he arrives on the different floors of the elevator, the

words “munchy”, “crunchy”, and “more chocolatey” arrive as personified words on the

elevator. As they do so, the cuckoo bird gets more and more agitated. By the time “more

chocolatey” arrives, he goes “cuckoo”, spinning around and bouncing off the walls. This

formula is used for nearly all Cocoa Puffs commercials that I analyzed. The cuckoo bird

begins by restraining himself but the “more chocolatey” flavor drives him crazy because he

can’t have it. He must repress the desire for the “chocolatey goodness” in order to eventually

earn it.

Fig. 6 (2000s)

40

Sidney Mintz (1996) discusses a pervasive theme of morality within sugar

specifically that I apply to the cuckoo bird commercial. Mintz links the “refusal to consume”

(Mintz, 1996, 79) sugar for one’s own personal betterment as part of an illusory self-denial

that convinces the self of a higher moral standing. However, he argues that this makes

morality itself the consumable, placing the self in high moral standing. In Mintz’s analysis, it

is not the act of cutting out sugar that is morally bettering, but the repression of desire. Just as

in Wilson’s analysis of repression of desire in coffee cafes, one repression justifies the

secondary indulgence - like skim milk and whipped cream. In the case of the Cocoa Puffs,

the Cuckoo bird initially has to repress the chocolatey flavor, until he goes “cuckoo”. Simply

his attempt at repression means he has “earned” the chocolatey goodness.

This depiction is not unlike the lived experience of Americans who are fed

contradictory information about desire. As mentioned before, Warde notes the contradiction

between the rise in references to indulge at the same time as there was a rise in health

information. Furthermore, the writers and producers of Fed Up (2014), a documentary on

food, bring up a similar facts. As Americans are more concerned about weight, they are also

fed constant advertisement to eat sugary foods. The cuckoo bird is regularly broken down by

the temptation from the chocolatey flavors, much like Fed Up depicts how Americans give

into the advertisements they are constantly exposed to. In a way, the cuckoo bird is

advocating giving into your desires while still depicting repression of them. By identifying

with the cuckoo bird, consumers feel less guilty about giving into the pleasures of eating

chocolate breakfast cereal. The cuckoo bird is just one example of how advertising has

41

created a cultural norm of giving in to restraint. In a sense, it gives an entire culture, children

in particular, permission to indulge in chocolate for breakfast.

Breakfast Cereals as an Indulgent Space

Ochs et. al. discuss dessert from a Bourdieuan perspective as a “taste of luxury and

freedom” (Ochs. et. al. 1996). Indulgence is luxury - it represents something earned due to

hard work, the same way spending money represents the work done to earn that money. As

mentioned before, Ochs et. al. discuss the way Americans navigate dessert as an indulgence

to be earned by first eating dinner (Ochs et. al, 1996). The authors noticed that in comparison

to Italian families, American families often talked about dinner as a duty to get dessert, the

true taste of luxury. Desserts are primarily sugary items - cakes, chocolates, pies. Their

indulgent nature is typically considered their best quality - rich, delicious, sinfully good - and

because of their sinfulness, they must be earned by eating what is good. Sugared cereals are

different. Although they are just as sugary as many desserts and contain dessert-like

ingredients such as chocolate, cookies, and marshmallows, they are for breakfast. The Ochs

piece demonstrates that people in the US tend to think about dessert as something that needs

to be earned - therefore, if you ate a chocolate for breakfast, it wasn’t earned. However,

eating cereal for breakfast is acceptable, so by turning chocolate into a cereal, it becomes

acceptable. It is no longer necessary to restrain oneself from indulging under these values.

There is a negotiation between indulgence and restraint that occurs in the framing of

cereals as breakfast food. For example, the Cookie Crisp commercial formula features Chip

the Wolf, whose line is “it looks like chocolatey chip cookies, taste like them too, but its a

BREAKFAST CEREAL!” (Fig. 7) (Oldies Vids, 2005). So if the cereal looks like a cookie

42

and tastes like a cookie, and has just as much sugar as a cookie, why not just eat a cookie for

breakfast? Why the need to justify it as a cereal? As mentioned before, the enticing qualities

necessitate a mediator. In this case, it is achieved by simulating the cereal as a healthy food.

Fig. 7 (2005)

The same can be said for other children’s cereals, such as Cocoa Puffs, Lucky

Charms, Trix, and Frosted Flakes. Lucky Charms’ best quality that is advertises are the

marshmallows - the “lucky charm” part of the cereal (fig. 8)(Lynch, 2012). However,

marshmallows wouldn't otherwise be a breakfast food. In the case of Luck Charms, the

commercials feature Lucky the Leprechaun constantly searching for the “lucky charms”,

which are actually marshmallows. By calling them “lucky charms” rather than

marshmallows, the commercial gives them a positive twist. Trix reframes their cereals as

healthy options by stressing fruit flavors and colors - while not actually containing real fruit

(General Mills, 2014) (fig. 9). Similar to Cookie Crisp, Trix and Frosted Flakes take sugared,

flavored, grain and repackage them as breakfasts.

Fig. 8 (1990s) Fig. 9 (2014)

43

The space of a breakfast cereal morally justifies eating cookies or marshmallows for

breakfast, but actually eating a cookie for breakfast would go against what we believe

breakfast food is. No-one serves cereal for dessert - yet they might do exactly that with a

chocolate or a cookie. Breakfast cereals - which inhabit a space of “breakfast food” - are a

morally acceptable food for breakfast, so by re-packaging tiny cookies into a cereal, they are

framed as an acceptable breakfast option - a taste of luxury without indulging. If eating a

cookie for breakfast is not “good for you”, then you can reach for Cookie Crisp - it has ten

essential vitamins and minerals, and is part of a complete breakfast!

Health and Indulgence and Restraint

There is a unique negotiation that goes on between the moral quality of indulgence

and denial, one that is both obsessed with health as well as with a moral justifiable cause for

indulgence (Wilson, 2005). For example, as a country, there was an uptrend in fat-free foods

in the 1980s through the early 2000s, largely due to late 1960s concerns that most lifestyle

diseases were due to excessive fat intake (Kawash, 2013). Between the years 1995 and 1997

alone, food companies introduced over five thousand low-fat versions of popular products

(Wilson, 2005). Yet along with all all these fat-free products has been an increase in the

purchase of fatty foods. Both Mintz (1996) and Wilson (2005) discuss this in their work - not

only do Americans buy what they want to eat, but they also buy low-fat versions of them and

consume those as well. The consumption of the fat-free or low-fat product functions as a

moral justification for the consumption of the fatty product.

Health is implicated in this discourse of moral negotiation. While prevailing ideals

around bodily size and composition varies between time and place, thinness is often

44

associated with a higher status and superior moral quality (Counihan, 1999). This was also

noted going back to Bourdieu in 1984 - he noticed that slimness was often associated with

high social standing (Bourdieu, 1984). The relationship between thinness and control dates

back to their connection in early Europe - thinness was associated with fasting, which

demonstrated control and high moral quality. Furthermore, in today’s US culture, thinness is

highly valued (Greenhalgh, 2015). Those that fail to fit into the dominant ideal of a thin, fit

“biocitizen”, as described by Greenhalgh (2015), are marginalized to the fringes of society.

Counihan (1999) puts it succinctly when she discusses her students responses to restraint:

“college students value the excursus of restraint in eating because it is a path to personal

attractiveness, moral superiority, high status, and dominance” (Counihan, 1999, 121). The

physical manifestation of restraint, which is a thin, healthy image, is part of the desire to

restrain. In order to fit into American society and display high moral standing, one must

maintain a thin physical image. Warde (1997) discusses how advertisements both reinforce

and contradict these ideals, leading to a difficult negotiation between indulgence and

restraint. He noticed that while advertisements for indulgences, such as cakes and pies,

increased in the 1990s, the size of the women in magazines decreased (Warde, 1997). This

demonstrates a societal pressure to indulge, as well as pressure to become thinner -

contradictory and confusing messages.

Cereals exhibit similar contradictory messages in their language and presentation.

Some cereals, such as Cheerios, focus on the health of the cereal as its main desirable

attribute, while others, such as Trix, focus mostly on the taste. Cheerios commercials

routinely focus on the words “go power” and “protein” (haikarate4, 2014) while cereals such

45

as Trix frequently feature words such as “sugary” and “delicious”, particularly in their early

commercials (Genius7277, 2014). Frosted flakes commercials demonstrate the change in

message that Warde (1997) discusses. Early Frosted Flakes commercials (pre 1960s) focus

more on the sugared aspects, like the “delicious sugar frosting” (Haikarate4, 2014). They

were even initially called “Sugar Frosted Flakes”, and were later shortened to “Frosted

Flakes” to de-emphasize the sugared aspect (BBC, 2010). The early Tony the Tiger also

resembled a soft, fluffy tiger, somewhat like a stuffed animal. Moving into the 1990s and

early 2000s, Tony the Tiger looks muscled, like he works out, and uses words like

“supercharged”. Though the actual contents of the cereal change little, the commercials

exhibit a changing relationship with food and the physical manifestation of what you eat -

they advertise how the cereal will actually make you healthier and more athletic, while still

being a delicious daily indulgence. We are easily persuaded to hear what we want to hear by

just repackaging and reframing of the message.

Some of the advertisement in cereal is overt in its attempt to display the healthful

virtues. At the end of the commercial for nearly all cereals is the catchphrase “part of a

complete breakfast with ten important vitamins and minerals” with the emblematic shot of

the cereal next to fruit, toast, milk, and orange juice. The interesting catch in the last phrase is

the part - implying that if you add toast, fruit, milk, and orange juice to the sugary cereal, it is

a complete breakfast. Though toast, fruit, milk, and orange juice aren’t the healthiest

additions, they function in a similar manner as purchasing a fat-free food to justify buying a

fatty food. They help frame cereal as a healthy option. They mediate the indulgence by

46

adding a perceived healthy aspect, attempting to balance the conflicting pressure of indulging

and restraining.

Many of the cereal commercials talk about these “essential” vitamins and minerals

that are in the cereal. For example, in the Cocoa Puffs commercial, after the Cuckoo bird

finally goes ‘cuckoo’, the end depicts the cereal next to the toast, orange juice, milk, and

fruit, and then says “part of this complete breakfast, with ten important vitamins and

minerals”. Now, not only is the cereal a part of the complete breakfast, but that it has

vitamins and minerals, which culturally recognized markers of health. Additionally, many

boxes of cereals nowadays advertise the “whole grains” either in commercials or on the box

itself. Incidentally, vitamins and minerals are added back to the grain after excessive

processing rids the majority of the nutrients from grains (“Breakfast Cereal -- Britannica

Academic” 2016). However, adding back those vitamins, drawing attention to “whole

grains”, and presenting it alongside toast, milk, and fruit morally justify sugary, indulgent

cereal for breakfast. Since there is a cultural imperative to justify indulgences, the vitamins

can serve part of that function. The sugared cereal satisfies the indulgence, and you can sleep

at night knowing you got your daily vitamins and minerals.

There have been a number of studies that voice concern over the effects of sugared

cereal on the health of its consumers, mainly children. Studies have suggested that breakfast

cereals account for between 8% and 9% of sugars eaten by children, and that cereals that are

marketed to children (such as the ones discussed in this chapter) contain much more sugar

than those marketed to adults (Harris et. al. 2011). Harris et. al. (2011) demonstrated via an

experimental design that children who were offered sugary cereals ate nearly twice as much

47

as children who were offered non-sugared cereals and consumed significantly more sugar

overall. The study also indicated that children were more likely to eat more cereal when it

was a sugared cereal, as opposed to a non-sugared cereal. Furthermore, a study done by

Folkvord et. al. (2016) showed a connection between “environmental cues”, or in the case of

the experiment, advertising specific snacks to groups of children, and BMI two years later

(Folkvord et. al. 2016). The study showed that environmental cues could be directly related

to food choices that affect BMI. Sugared breakfast cereals are not, by any standards, a

healthful food, and yet their popularity remains. More than just advertising to children,

commercials reframe sugared cereal options as morally acceptable by placing them in a

justifiable sector of food - breakfast cereal. Cereal advertisements do not just replicate

cultural ideals of indulgence and restraint. They also use them as marketing techniques to

frame cereals as a culturally acceptable breakfast option - a fun, child-friendly food,

convenient for the family, and full of vitamins.

Conclusion

Cereal commercials are innovative, pervasive, culturally iconic, and very effective.

They are nearly omnipresent socialization. In the US, they have helped to write the norms of

what a healthy breakfast should be. They also exhibit culturally specific ideals of indulgence

and restraint, which socializes children and families to these ideals. Restraint is a part of

American food culture - this chapter has looked at restraint from historical and

anthropological angles. Indulgence is also part of American food culture - but it is typically

mediated via restraint, such as eating dinner before dessert. Certain special spaces, like

breakfast cereal, are manifestations of how people deal with cultural norms. Cereals

48

commercials display these cultural norms in that they have many features of indulgences, but

are advertised as healthy. The are representative of a moral negotiation between indulging

and restraining - between giving into the social pressure of indulging and adhering to a social

script of restraint. This is also representative of the contradiction between indulging and

eating healthy. While people desire to indulge in sugary cereals, the cultural norms of what

breakfast is supposed to be lead them to need to justify cereal as healthy. Cereal commercials

are part of the socialization process that teaches people about the intersecting spaces of

breakfast cereal and indulgent food. These ideals are part of a larger cultural understanding

of indulgence, restraint, and food norms.

49

Chapter 3 Introduction

This chapter discusses the anthropology of childhood and its relevance to children’s

cereal commercials. I begin with a background in the anthropology of childhood, and then

discuss how this thesis fits into that area of study. Then I discuss the anthropological

literature on discourse around children’s food. I will conclude by analyzing cereal

commercials in the context of children’s food and explore implications for the health of

children.

Anthropology of Childhood

This thesis focuses primarily on children’s cereals, which I identified by the depiction

of children and markers of childhood in the US (like cartoons) in the commercial. With that

in mind, it is necessary to discuss the anthropology of childhood in order to see where

children’s commercials fit in the area of study. Children were largely absent as a specific area

of study until recently, previously relegated to the so-called domestic sphere that women

once were stuck in (Friedl, 2002). While it still seems that little has been written on the

anthropology of childhood, there has been some progress in the area of study lately.

Childhood is a culturally relative concept. The experience of being a child has varied

widely across time and between places. David Lancy (2008) made major contributions to

research on the anthropology of childhood. His analysis follows a historical trajectory of

children as “chattel, changelings, and cherubs” (13). Chattel stems from the root for property

or capital, and is used to analyze how children were considered economic units. Changeling

is concept stemming from mediaeval times and is used to represent unwanted and

50

inconvenient children. Cherubs refer to the angelic image of a child that is a priceless family

member. Lancy analyzes children through these lenses to discuss three different ways in

which children have been seen throughout time and space. He argues that the concept of

childhood as we know it in the US did not arise until about the last 150 years. Prior to

industrialization, children in most societies were at the bottom of society, supporting the

society through work. This is where chattel is applied - children were often necessary to

support the economy and family. Today, children still persist in important economic role in

some places. In Kisoro of Western Uganda society relies on children as young as four years

old to tend to goats and chickens (Lancy, 2008). Chattel can also refer to children as

economic exchange units. Poor families owing majors debts could sell their daughters into

marriage to forgive the debt.

Children were not always considered commodities or blessings. This is where Lancy

applies the concept of changeling - it refers to instances where children aren’t treasured and

are considered a burden. In societies with scarce resources, infants that appeared weak - the

proverbial “changeling” - might be killed upon birth. The Ache in Paraguay practiced

infanticide. Should an infant not have a legitimate father, its death seemed natural and more

practical than raising the child. Imperial China used infanticide as a way to control

population growth, and the Aztecs sacrificed children to the gods to appease them (Lancy,

2008).

In more recent years in industrialized countries, children have shifted from economic

assets or burdens to precious cherubs - the epitome of innocence, to be protected and shielded

from the adult world. Lancy argues that the western industrialized world, the United States in

51

particular, has shifted to a neontocracy, a society that privileges children before all others.

This is as opposed to a genrontocracy, where age privileges members of society. Treating

children as cherubs puts them at the forefront of society’s concern. Instead of apprenticing

them at a young age to work, children are sent to school and “cultivated” (Lareau, 2003).

This is evident in the US parents, particularly upper and middle-class parents who can be

seen as investing in their children. Even with little material consequence in return, thousands

of dollars are spent on children to keep them fed, housed, clothed, educated, and entertained.

Lancy claims that in this setting, children provide critical emotional support rather than

material support. Parents’ “slavish devotion” (Lancy, 2008, 78) to their children can be

interpreted as investing in their own emotional well-being despite little in return practically.

This practice is amplified in the US, resulting in a highly child-centric model of childhood.

Not all societies have a child-centric model. Childhood is experienced differently

throughout the world. Different childhood experiences have been explored by such

anthropologists as Margaret Mead (1928), who studied adolescence and childhood in Samoa

in the early 20th century. She found that concepts thought to be biologically inherent to

adolescence, such as moodiness, did not exist all over the world. The experience of being an

adolescent in Samoa did not include the same kind of rebellion and moodiness as the US

teenager reported. As mentioned in the introduction, Ochs and Schieffelin (1984) studied

differences in childhood among middle class US, Kaluli, Papua New Guinea, and western

Samoa. They studied child-caregiver interaction, among other things, and found that it was

not the same across all three places. This study found that in US, children were typically

accommodated for, rather than expected to adjust to the situation. American parents tended to

52

engage and cooperate with children, while masking the child’s incompetence. In contrast,

Kaluli Parents never treated infants as equals or partners in conversation. As they aged, they

were often carried around by another family member, facing others. Furthermore, Kaluli

parents only registered the beginning of speech once the child has used certain words, and

only engaged or taught the child how to speak once they picked up these words from

watching the group. They also did not use simplified vocabulary and grammatical patterns, as

is often used in the US for children, but corrected children’s speech in order to further

develop it.

Following up on this work, Elinor Ochs and Carolina Izquierdo further documented

three different experiences of childhood in their piece “Responsibility in Childhood: Three

Developmental Trajectories” (2009). Their study discusses three different experiences of

responsibility in childhood in Peru, Samoa, and middle-class Los Angeles, California. Their

study reveals how childhood responsibility varies widely among these three different groups

of people. For example, among the Matsigenka of Peruvian Amazon, self-sufficiency at a

young age was highly valued. Children of six or younger were taught to help prepare meals,

fish, gather building materials, and participate in everyday rituals. Samoan children were

taught from an early age to be attentive to the overall needs of the group. The group itself

was based on social hierarchies dependent on age and status. The children were expected to

put the needs of elders before their own. Ochs’ work in Samoa on language socialization

(1988) documents how these values were transmitted via cultural practices. For example,

infants learned about social hierarchy and status by watching their caregivers, who were

often older children. Children were critical players in carrying out the everyday tasks of

53

infant care, food collecting, fire tending, and cooking. As children, they were at the bottom of

the social hierarchy and could gain status by participating in group tasks. This group of

people stressed the needs of the group before those of individuals as a priority for children to

learn.

In contrast to both the Matsigenka and Samoans, American middle-class children of

LA were often the center of attention within the family unit. Ochs and Izquierdo hypothesize

this is due to the highly child-centric model of childhood in the US, as well as one that

minimizes childhood responsibility. This is what Lancy is referring to in his model of a

neontocracy. It is evident through the anthropological literature that the US is an example of

a neontocracy.

Ochs and Izquierdo (2005) and Bentley (2014) argue that Dr. Benjamin Spock, the

prominent 20th century American pediatrician, aided the shift to a child-centric parenting

focus and a neontocracy in the US. His book on child-rearing advocated for a model of

‘listening to your child’ that may have contributed to turning the focus towards a

child-centric or concerted cultivation type of child-rearing. While his book was not strictly

advocating for children to exercise power over their parents, he proposed a “self-demand”

infant and child feeding regime that focused on allowing the child to eat when they are

hungry. Taking that as a cue to focus the attention on a child’s every whim, these authors

suggest that middle-class parents shifted towards a child-centric model of child-rearing.

Annette Lareau (2003) describes a term for involved middle-class American

parenting in her sociological study Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life.

Lareau describes how parents of middle-class children often raised their children through

54

‘concerted cultivation’, a practice that Lareau identifies as parents actively tending to their

children in order to aid their development. Concerted cultivation embraces parents

participating and organizing children’s activities and lives in order to give the child the right

advantages to succeed in the world. This gives children little control over their own

decisions, but offers the illusion that they are in charge of their decisions. It also creates what

Lareau calls a “sense of entitlement”, which is the sense that children brought up under a

model of concerted cultivation feel that they are able to challenge parental authority. This

contrasts both with the Matsigenka and with the Samoans’ cultures that Ochs and Izquierdo

studied. These groups of people did not treat their children as projects to be invested in, but

rather additional members of society that are expected to contribute to the group early in

childhood. A concerted cultivation model is a somewhat paradoxical model in that its

philosophy both creates a highly dependent child, but also gives them a sense of entitlement.

Similar to Lareau’s findings, Ochs and Schieffelin’s (1984) analysis of child-centric

culture notes how in the US, not only do parents accommodate for their children, but they

also shelter them from adult activities. Ochs and Izquierdo’s (2009) study notes that

middle-class parents tend to perform many different tasks for their kids, even when their

children were capable of doing the tasks for themselves. Klein and Goodwin (2013) also

found a similar contradiction in their study of chores among middle-class families in Los

Angeles, CA. They observed parents urging their children to participate in household chores,

but often the parents were met with great resistance from the children. Klein and Goodwin

theorize that because children of middle-class families in the US are often so highly

monitored by parents, they are no longer socialized to be part of the working unit of the

55

family. This creates an interesting contradiction between childhood independence and

parental control, similar to Lareau’s (2003) contradictory model of concerted cultivation. On

the one hand, parents desire their children to participate in household activities. However, on

the other hand, by controlling their lives, they undermine a sense of responsibility in their

children’s lives.

The expectation of low participation in household chores found in studies like Ochs

and Izquierdo (2009) and Klein and Goodwin (2013) creates an dependence on parents. Klein

and Goodwin (2013) note that among middle-class families, even routine tasks such as

tooth-brushing were monitored by parents. This kind of dependence further replicates a

neontocracy, as described by Lancy (2008), because it reinforces the belief that the adults in

the household are the ones that should have to cater to the child’s needs. However, as noted

by Lareau and discussed above, it also creates a “sense of entitlement”, or a belief that

children should be able to challenge parental authority. In contrast to the Matsigenka and the

Samoans, children in the US were given very little material responsibility in childhood (Ochs

and Izquierdo, 2009). They were not entrusted with everyday critical tasks such as

housework and childcare, but were given relatively inconsequential chores to create an

illusion of responsibility. This contradiction between child-centric culture extends to

mealtimes, and to the greater United States food culture. Children as separate consumers

from adults replicates a child-centric model, as well as participates in the paradoxical

relationship between childhood independence and child-centric culture.

Ochs et. al. (1996) and Ochs and Beck (2013) discuss how child-centric culture and

child agency are present in food culture. They note that parents offer children multiple

56

choices for dinner or snacks, giving them an illusion of control. However, by monitoring the

choices offered in the first place, parents are still ultimately in charge of the child’s decisions.

Ochs et. al. (1996) found that children often do not want to eat what their parents eat due to a

perceived dislike of ‘adult food’. As discussed before, Italian parents encouraged children to

express their food preferences as part of their personality (child qua person). In the US,

parents often talked about children’s foods as separate from adults’ food (child qua child).

These “generational divides” (Ochs. et. al. 1996) meant that children and parents in US

families tended to disagree on what they liked to eat, creating a rift in what might be

considered children’s food and adults food. In contrast, Italian families frequently expressed

mutual agreement and appreciation for the same foods. This study reinforces how the US

tends towards a model of child-centric culture. In the US, parents have assumptions about

what the child will and won’t eat - which not only reinforces a separation between child and

adult food, but actually can create it (Ochs. et. al. 1996). By referring to specific foods as

“kid food”, parents actually create the perceived difference between the two. Furthermore,

they participate in the relationship between child-centric culture and childhood

independence. By monitoring children’s decisions about food, parents restrict children’s

independence, in turn replicating child-centric culture within food.

Children’s food as a separate category not only replicates cultural norms about

children’s food, but creates a whole new market for food and advertising. The next section

explores how the children’s food as a separate market historically arose, participating in the

cultural separation between children’s food and adult’s food.

57

The Child Consumer

Ochs and Schieffelin (1984) discuss how child-centeredness extends to material

culture. In the US, parents often defer to the child’s needs before their own. Furthermore,

there is a division between objects for children and objects for adults - children have toys,

clothes, play equipment, books, and tools, such as forks and spoons, made exclusively for

them. Often objects identified for children are simplified and made ‘safer’, such as making a

children’s fork plastic, less sharp, and rubberized along the edges for grip. Typically,

children’s items are aimed at preventing harm, modifying the object to the child rather than

expecting the child to adapt to the object. Children’s food is one example of this. Children’s

food is food that specifically has been adapted to be considered appropriate for the child -

again, participating in child-centric culture by tailoring the object to the child rather than

expecting or teaching the child to adapt to ‘adult’ food. Historically, the transition to this

discourse gave rise to the a child as a separate consumer in the US.

The child as an independent consumer requires a bit of historical background. The

invention of children’s food did not arise until the mid 20th century with the rise of the

industrialization of food. According to Amy Bentley (2014), before the industrial revolution,

over 95% of infants were breastfed, with no need for mainstream commercialized baby food.

When the time arose for transitioning children to solid food, parents prepared simpler foods

or smaller portions of their food. The industrial revolution brought a new wave of scientific

technology, and with it came the “medicalization of motherhood” (Bentley, 2014, 21). This

refers to the increased focus and trust in medical professionals to control knowledge about

motherhood and early childhood. During this time, medical professionals encouraged

58

mothers to transition away from breastfeeding in favor of formula and baby food, which

could be more precisely measured and calculated for nutrition. The proliferation of children’s

food after that was largely due to extensive advertising convincing mothers that formulas and

baby food were best for childhood nutrition (Bentley, 2014). Today, while breastfeeding is

seeing a resurgence, baby food still persists.

The industrial revolution did not just bring about ideological change around baby and

children’s food - economics also played a factor. During the 1920s, Prohibition caused

restaurants and grocery stores to lose massive amounts of revenue from losing alcohol sales

(Patico and Lozada, 2016). Before this period, it wasn’t common for children and families to

patronize restaurants - they were, in fact, actively discouraged from them as restaurants were

considered adult spaces where drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes took place. However,

with a loss in sales of alcohol, resturants needed a new market to make up lost revenue, and

children filled that niche. Restaurants began offering children’s menus and tailoring their

spaces to orient them towards families. This resulted in a proliferating market for children -

specific food. With a new market specifically for children, there was a new opportunity for

advertisement to take place. This demonstrates how a separation between children’s food and

adult’s food is not only a way that children and families are socialized to cultural ideas about

childhood and food, but can also be a successful marking technique. The entire material

culture of children’s food is dependent a separation between adult and child food - everything

from kid’s meals in restaurants to Lunchables to juice boxes depend on a belief that

children’s food is and should remain separate from adult’s food. Cereal commercials are one

59

particularly salient example of children’s food replicating child-centric values and

participating in a discourse of childhood independence.

Cereal Commercials Analysis

My analysis in this chapter discusses the ways in which cereal commercials portray

children’s cereal within the child-centered paradigm. The connection with children, sugar,

and cereals goes back to the early 20th century when physicians recommended that a mix of

milk, cereal grains, and sugar be fed to infants as their earliest meal (Bentley, 2014). With the

rise of the child consumer in the mid 20th century, there was an open niche for children’s

cereal to become one of the most successful convenience foods of all time. Early cereal

commercials in the 1950s targeted kids by emphasizing the sugary aspect - for example, as I

mentioned before, frosted flakes were “sugar frosted flakes” (haikarate4, 2014). Their

cartoon characters were featured prominently, such as Tony the Tiger. These brand

characters were cultivated carefully to seem like the friends of children - friends that they

would grow up with if they continued to buy the cereal (BBC, 2010). In fact, some $25

million are spent on cereal advertising every year, and it is effective - as discussed before,

about 47% of first requests from children are for breakfast cereal by brand name, and this

brand awareness can occur as early as age 2 or 3 (McGinnis et. al. 2006). Furthermore, cereal

commercials don’t just sell cereal to child consumers - they replicate ideals of

child-centeredness and child agency that are a unique and important part of food norms in the

United States.

Cereal commercials tend to be fairly formulaic. Though they vary stylistically with

time, their formula has remained roughly consistent throughout the years. Children’s cereal

60

commercials tend to frame their cereals as specific to children. They are not only for kids, but

they are forbidden from adults. Most cereal commercials I analyzed featured children, either

acting or cartoon, and most often one boy and one girl. They usually have some interaction

with the brand character in the commercial that reinforces that cereal is for them, and not for

the character. For example, the Trix rabbit from Trix cereal desires to have the Trix cereal,

but he can’t have it because, as the slogan says repeatedly, “Trix are for kids”. The rabbit

showed up in the cereal commercials around the 60s, and has remained fairly consistent

since. The commercials depicted below are all decades apart. The two on the below are from

the 1950s and 60s (fig.10), while the following one is from the late 1990s (fig.11)

(Genius7277, 2010). They are, however, all featuring the same thing - the white rabbit failing

to get the Trix. The commercials follow the formula of the rabbit trying to find the Trix,

usually trying to sneak away with it or run away with it, but he is inevitably caught by the

children. The catch phrase “silly rabbit, Trix are for kids!” is stated at the end. This is the

clearest way that a commercial delineates between what is for children and what isn’t - their

slogan says it all.

Fig. 10 (1956)

61

Fig. 11 (1995)

In an Alpha Bits commercial from the 1990s, the brand character Wizard must try to

escape the castle with the cereal, while the kids try to get the Alpha Bits from him (fig.12)

(Wutaii1 Nostalgia, 2015). His plan is foiled by a clumsy mistake, and the kids end up with

the Alpha Bits. His failure as the adult in the commercial results in the children acquiring the

cereal.

Fig.12 (1980s)

In the Cookie Crisp commercials, “Chip the Wolf” is always after the “delicious

cooooookiie crisp”, but is always thwarted by his foolish plans to get the cereal. The cereal

ends up going to the kids.

Frosted Flakes showed less formulaic commercials - the only truly consistent theme

in Frosted Flakes was the theme of Tony the Tiger and how the “secret” sugar in the Frosted

Flakes could make you strong and powerful. However, there is one specific commercial for

62

Frosted Flakes where a middle aged woman discussed the “nonsense” that Frosted Flakes are

just for kids, and claims that adults can eat them too (Wutaii1 Nostalgia, 2015).

Fig. 13 (1990s)

During this time, she is closing the blinds and turning off the lights so she can

consume the Frosted Flakes by herself. She must hide herself because the Frosted Flakes are

for kids, and not adults. Tony the Tiger comes on the scene at the end and says “you just

have to admit it, Frosted Flakes have the taste that adults have grown to love… they’re

grrrrreat!”. Furthermore, it is the fact that she is indulging in the cereal that means she has to

hide it. She can’t enjoy the cereal publically because Frosted Flakes are meant for the

enjoyment of children, and she is an adult.

Lucky Charms commercials follow essentially the same format for all their

commercials, with some deviances allowed for advertising of special toys, etc. The formula

for the Lucky Charms commercial typically features the usual two children, chasing “Lucky”

to get the Lucky Charms marshmallows (Fig.14-16). Lucky almost evades the children, but

inevitably gets caught by some kind of trap, like the children sneaking up on him and

handcuffing him. The children then claim the Lucky Charms marshmallows for themselves.

63

Fig.14 (1972) (RetroGoop, 2010)

Fig. 15 (2010) (SSReel, 2012)

Fig. 16(1966) (RetroGoop, 2010)

The formula that so many of these cereal exhibit feature the children against the brand

character, who is generally a cartoon that is trying to steal or gain the cereal from the

children. Inevitably, the cartoon character loses and gives up the cereal to the children. The

cartoon character never gets to enjoy the cereal, but the children do. In many cases, such as

the commercial where Lucky of Lucky Charms is handcuffed, the cartoon character is

actually punished for his efforts to try and get the cereal. A child-centric culture is

reinforced by by designating cereal for children only. The Leprechaun represents the cereal,

the emblematic brand character that creates the bond between the consumer and the product.

64

He is also depicted as the adult character in the commercial, functioning as the dictator for

the food choices of the children in this situation. However, in every commercial the children

catch him and thwart his plan to get their cereal. Children also have the opportunity to

challenge authority by “capturing” the cereal. Lucky Charms uses overt themes of magic in

their commercials such as in their slogan, “They’re Magically Delicious!”. Lucky Charms

presents the cereal as a literal magical transformation from average to superior, and the

transformation occurs through regaining control of the cereal - symbolic of the children

regaining control over their food and their agency around food choices in addition to parental

authority that has dictated these choices.

(Fig. 17, 1990s) (Lynch, 2012)

This formula occurs in other commercials, including Cookie Crisp, Frosted Flakes,

Trix, and Fruit Loops. Some follow the traditional formula of two children, typically a boy

and a girl, such as in Cookie Crisp commercials. Similar to Lucky Charms, Cookie Crisp

features the brand character, Chip the Wolf, trying to get Cookie Crisp for himself. The

children always end up ruining his plans and getting the delicious Cookie Crisp for

themselves. Trix usually features two children that take the Trix from the Rabbit, and tell him

that he is a “silly rabbit - Trix are for kids!”. Frosted Flakes follows a less formulaic model,

65

but as discussed previously, often brings up how the sugary taste is for the kids, and not the

adults.

These cereals function as part of a socialization process for children that tells them

that children’s food in the US is separate from adult food, and that these cereals are

children’s food. This is one avenue of socialization that plays out in other aspects of

children’s food culture, such as the dinner table. If children have an idea of what children’s

food is from media, then they are likely to bring that into other aspects of eating. Ochs et. al.

(1996) along with Ochs and Beck (2013) and Cavanaugh et. al. (2014) have noted that food

struggles with children at the dinner table are often revolve around the struggle to “force”

kids to eat what they “have to”, usually by preparing separate meals, letting the children eat

in a different room, or bribing with dessert. I believe that occurs in part as a result of the

socialization process that causes children to assume their food should be just for them - they

are kids, so they should be fed kids’ food. Instead of expressing mutual appreciation for the

same kinds of foods, such as occurred among the Italian families Ochs et. al. (1996)

observed, children in the US often express distaste for food their parents eat. Furthermore,

cereal commercials they affect how both children and adults understand food and in turn

affect their perception of how that food should be eaten. If children believe that cereals are a

place wherein they are responsible for their food choices, and that this food belongs to them,

then they will want to seek them out in order to assert their autonomy. Additionally, parents

are more likely to understand cereal as a children’s food.

Cereal commercials don’t just display child-centric culture - they are also a space that

allows for a reclamation of child agency. Cereal commercials put children in a place of

66

power, where the child is able to exercise power against the adult figure in the commercial.

This depiction brings up the aforementioned contradiction between childhood independence

and child-centric model of parenting. On the one hand, these commercials show children

reclaiming cereal from adults, which depicts children as having authority over adults, much

like Lareau (2003) describes children with a “sense of entitlement” exercising power to

contradict adult requests. On the other hand, by representing these cereals as exclusively for

children, they participate in a discourse of child-centeredness that replicates a sheltered

childhood, as discussed earlier in this chapter. As mentioned in earlier chapters, Brian

Moeran (2014) discusses how advertisements function as a kind of “magic” that can

transform a product. Furthermore, magic is dependent on uncertainty (Moeran, 2014). It is

the job of the advertisement to make certain what is uncertain - in this case, the uncertainty

lies in who has agency over food, parents or children. Cereal commercials transform this

uncertainty by depicting a special space that reclaims children’s agency within food

decisions. However, paradoxically, while cereal commercials depict children regaining

autonomy, they also end up participating in the discourse of child-centric culture, which I

have demonstrated involves restricting childhood independence.

The agency/child-centeredness relationship depicted in these commercials plays out

in the lived experiences of families. As previously mentioned, cereals make up a large

portion of first requests for food by children (McGinnis et. al. 2006). Ochs and Schieffelin’s

(1984), Ochs and Izquierdo (2009), and Lareau (2003) discuss how parents mediate the lives

of children, often making decisions for them and monitoring them closely. Cereal

commercials show how children can make their own decisions about food, reclaiming their

67

independence, even though it is only an illusion. The commercials show the kids reclaiming

the cereal, but in doing so it replicates the separation between adult and children’s food. As

discussed before, this separation is involved with parental control over food. If both the adult

and the child believe there is a difference between adult and children’s food, then the parents

may be more likely to mediate what the children are eating.

Children, Sugar, and Health

As demonstrated in this chapter, cereal commercials frame children’s cereals as

children’s choices. They also stress that sugar is a key part of the child’s choice. Several

studies such as Goldberg (1990) and Kawash (2013) note the connection between children

and sugar. It is often assumed that children want sugar, and children are usually not held to

as high a standard of self-restraint as adults are. Sugar permeates child-specific food. It is

often a bribe or reward for doing something good, it is served in abundance at children’s

birthday parties, and it is considered to make unpalatable food more desirable. Imagine Mary

Poppins telling the children “a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down”. This creates

a discourse around children’s foods - one that convinces children and adults that children

inherently love sugar. However, as Ochs et. al. (1996) demonstrates, sugar as children’s food

is not a universal concept. It is part of an American discourse around children’s food.

All of the before-mentioned cereals that feature cartoon characters (Trix, Cookie

Crisp, Lucky Charms, Frosted Flakes, Cocoa Puffs, and Alpha Bits) are high sugar cereals.

They feature a range of desirable attributes, such as chocolate, fruit, cookies, mini

marshmallows, and frosting. In the chase between the child and the cartoon character, it is

typically the high-sugar asset that the cartoon character is after - the cuckoo bird is after the

68

chocolatey taste, the Leprechaun is after the marshmallows, Chip the Wolf is after the

cookie, and the rabbit is after the fruity flavor. When the children acquire the cereals from the

cartoon characters, they are claiming the sugary asset of the cereal for themselves. This is a

way of framing what kids like to eat, as opposed to adults - kids like fruity flavors, cookies,

marshmallows, and frosting. By situating them in a uniquely child-focused space, the

commercials reinforce what kids should want to eat.

Sugary cereals as children’s food presents a number of health concerns. Between the

years of 1963 and 2002, years where TV watching for children proliferated rapidly, rates of

obesity tripled for children ages 6-11 (McGinnis et.al., 2006). Harris et. al. (2009) note that

about 98% of the television food advertisements children see and 89% of adolescents see are

for products high in fat, sugar, and/or sodium, and the average child watches about 15

television advertisements per day, adding up to about 5500 messages per year. Furthermore,

these advertisements are highly effective in getting children to desire their products, as

demonstrated in Goldberg’s (1990) work among Quebec families, which showed that French

speaking families purchase less fast food and children’s cereal than do English speaking

families. Dixon et. al. (2007) showed a correlation between positive attitudes associated with

food advertised on television, whether the food was healthy or not.

These scholars have not just noted that television commercials work to get kids and

families to buy the products- they have also offered evidence of negative health impacts for

the consumers. With increasing obesity rates and a proliferation of lifestyle diseases such as

diabetes and heart disease, there has been a rise in attention to what kinds of factors

contribute to obesity (Adler and Stewart 2009). This goes back to the differences between a

69

biomedical model and a public health model. The public health model of obesity looks at the

broader range of issues at play, and would consider advertising to children as part of the

problem perpetuating childhood obesity. Advertisements send messages that create certain

acceptable frameworks - for example, that it is acceptable for children to eat sugary cereals

because they are children’s food. They also create brand affinity, the tendency to patronize

one specific brand because that brand convinces consumers that it is better than another

brand (McGinnis et. al. 2006). That in turn leads consumers to purchase those products

because they are loyal to that brand. This perpetuates the cycle of consuming the product.

Cereal commercials invoke the American ideal of personal responsibility in their

depiction of children regaining agency in commercials. The children have the choice to eat

the cereal, and are depicted as wanting to do so. Furthermore, the end of every cereal

commercial always says “part of a complete breakfast, with ten essential vitamins and

minerals”. This frames cereals as not only a choice, but a healthy choice. The vitamins and

minerals add to the appeal for parents. This addition to the commercial is anything but

accidental. In the 1960s, there was a realization that sugared cereals, one of the most beloved

food in America, were disturbingly unhealthy (BBC, 2010). In order not to lose customers,

companies fortified their cereals with vitamins and minerals, and turned that into a marketing

technique to advertise their products as healthy options. This technique was not to convince

kids that it was a healthy option - it targeted the paying parents. Just as Moeran (2014)

discusses, the cereal was transformed ‘magically’ by turning it into something new - a

healthy option beloved by children and parents alike.

70

Targeting children through cereal advertising could be considered part of what Alder

and Stewart (2009) call an “obesogenic environment”, or an environment that discourages

physical activity and encourages consumption. I would extend this environment to the

cultural forces that inform decisions, such as advertisement. Choosing what to eat is not just

about personal decision, but about all the combined factors that affect that decision.

Children’s cereal advertisements function as part of that environment by targeting a unique

group of consumers, informing a wider demographic than just adults. This not only informs

children about what they should eat, but contributes to establishing their food environment

very early in life.

Conclusion

Cereal commercials are an example of a cultural force that socializes children to

ideals about child-centric culture, but also offer the illusion of childhood agency through

commercials’ depictions of childhood independence. They represent and replicate ideals of

the greater child-centric US culture. Furthermore, considering the suggested effects of

advertising sugary foods to children and its relationship to childhood obesity, I would argue

that cereal commercials are part of an “obesogenic environment” that is contributing to the

childhood obesity epidemic. Children’s cereal commercials are powerful forces that inform

children of culturally specific ideas about food, health, and advertising.

71

Conclusion

This thesis began out of an interest in how culture shapes nutrition and ultimately health

outcomes. Specifically, I wanted to explore how lifestyle diseases, like obesity and diabetes,

might be affected by cultural practice. The field of anthropology shows us that almost

nothing occurs for purely biological reasons. Lifestyles, customs, and broader environmental

forces are nearly always involved in shaping the health of a group of people. As Greenhalgh

(2015) and Alder and Stewart’s (2009) works noted, health problems such as obesity and

diabetes are often blamed on the individual choices of the person. Anthropology challenges

us to see past individual choices and look at the health of an individual as part of larger

cultural forces at play. In other words, we must take a public health perspective. I wanted to

examine an aspect of culture from a public health perspective to further understand how

cultural practices are implicated health issues.

I examine cereal commercials to try and understand how culturally specific ideas of

family, health, and morality are present in food culture in the United States. I found that

cereal commercials not only displayed themes of family, morality, health and and ideas about

what constitutes acceptable food choices, but directly participated in discourses around these

themes. To best understand food culture, a public health model provides a helpful

framework. Cereal commercials demonstrate a way in which cultural preferences are formed

and transmitted. They also provided a useful framework for analyzing how we are

enculturated by advertising. Though I have inevitably participated in these cultural norms, I

wasn’t aware of their prevalence until I explored deeper the connections between advertising,

food choices and nutrition. This thesis explores the ways in which Americans indulge and

72

restrain their eating habits, and how there is a clear divergence in the food choices for

children and adults.. Understanding the themes of indulgence and restraint and how they

specifically relate to food choices and ultimately nutritional outcomes in children allows a

broader discourse about how food and food choices affect public health outcomes.

As I discussed in chapter two, in the US there is a cultural imperative to only enjoy

food through certain avenues, such as for dessert. The delineation between food that is ‘good

for you’ and food that is ‘bad for you’ is a cultural construct. Furthermore, cultural practices

reinforce what is good and bad, and therefore create discourses of indulgence (enjoying food)

and restraint (justifying enjoyment) unique to that group’s cultural norms. I analyzed this

theme in children’s cereal commercials, and connected it to larger social processes around

indulgence and restraint among food in the US.

Additionally, I have examined the distinction between children’s and adult’s food,

and what kinds of discourse that creates. As I discussed in chapter three, in the US, there is a

separation between food that is considered appropriate for children and food that is

considered appropriate for adults and cereal commercials have play a crucial part is creating

this distinction. The depiction of children and childhood in these commercials not only

creates and reinforces a separation between child and adult food, but also depicts a

reclamation of childhood independence. In US culture, this depiction of childhood

independence participates in a larger cultural interplay between childhood independence and

parental involvements in children’s lives. While the commercials that I analyzed showed

some reclamation of agency for the children in the commercial, they also reinforce ideals of

child-centeredness that limit childhood independence.

73

I argue that cereal commercials are a culturally specific force socializing children into

a discourse of indulgence and restraint as well as child-centric culture. However, it did not

just argue that cereal commercials are part of culturally specific food discourse. I argue that

beyond participating in a discourse of food, cereal commercials offer a unique space where

child independence is allowed. Furthermore, the way in which cereal commercials

enculturate children has broad implications for the health of children. These implications are

not limited to their cereal choices - they extend to what kinds of food children favor in

general. From my analysis, I found that children’s food tended to be foods with high sugar

content. I came to this conclusion when I analyzed how cereal commercials tended to

highlight cereal’s sugary qualities as positive. Cereal commercials also framed sugary cereal

as children’s food, reinforcing the idea that foods high in sugar are meant for children. In

other words, I don’t just argue that a discourse of indulgence and restraint and child-centric

food is present - I argue that there are harmful aspects from a public health standpoint. The

implications of this could potentially be wide-reaching. Food choices in childhood

enculturate children to food norms that last a lifetime and lead to diseases such as diabetes

and heart disease.

I believe these findings deserve to be examined in a broader context such as how

school lunches may inform future nutritional choices. If I were to have the time to do an

ethnographic study on this subject, I would observe what kinds of food are served in schools

and what children think children’s lunch food should be. I would then compare that to other

ideas of school lunches in other countries. I would want to know what children consider

healthy, if they value healthy food, when they find it appropriate to eat healthily, and when

74

they find it appropriate to indulge, as well as what they believe indulging to be. Ideally I

would gather research from multiple countries and look at the statistics of lifestyle diseases to

see which models of eating correlate with the best public health outcomes. How a culture

informs its youngest citizens about the value of food and nutritional choices has broad

implications for the health of a group of people.

Cultural ideas around health are more complex than just culturally relative models of

eating. They are part of a discourse of public health, and in the US, public health is a growing

concern. As discussed in this thesis, lifestyle diseases are becoming more and more common

and are becoming more problematic. I claim that, through my research on cereal commercials

and extrapolating from other studies, cultural attitudes around indulgence and restraint and

childhood are part the public health context that makes up obesity and lifestyle diseases.

These are examples of the broader cultural contexts that need to be accounted for when

analyzing health issues like obesity.

Anthropology seeks to understand human culture holistically in order to better

understand the troubles and triumphs of human societies. Examining more broadly the

cultural influences that establish food and health decisions leads to a better holistic

understanding of health. Understanding how cereal commercials participate in a discourse of

food norms in the US is one way to look at the broader context of what goes into shaping the

health of a population. The first part of improving health is looking at it from all possible

angles, factoring in the finer cultural details that shape the way we make decisions.

75

Sources Cited Adler, Nancy E., and Judith Stewart. 2009. “Reducing Obesity: Motivating Action While Not Blaming the Victim.” Milbank Quarterly 87 (1): 49–70 "Adult Obesity Facts." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2016. Accessed December 14, 2016. https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html. Ambjornsson, Fanny. “Talk”. 2004. In Fat: the Anthropology of an Obsession, edited by Kulick, Don, and Anne Meneley. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2005 Bentley, Amy. 2014. Inventing baby food: taste, health, and the industrialization of the American diet. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2014 Bordo, Susa. “Anorexia Nervosa: Psychopathology as the Crystallization of Culture”. 1993. In Food and Culture: A Reader, edited by Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik. New York: Routledge: 1997. Second edition 2008. Bourdieu, Pierre.1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Brumberg, Joan J. “The Appetite as a Voice”. 1988. In Food and Culture: A Reader, edited by Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik. New York: Routledge: 1997. Second edition 2008 Cavanaugh, Jillian R., Kathleen C. Riley, Alexandra Jaffe, Christine Jourdan, Martha Karrebæk, and Amy Paugh. 2014. “What Words Bring to the Table: The Linguistic Anthropological Toolkit as Applied to the Study of Food.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 24 (1): 84–97 CDC. 2016. “Adult Obesity Facts”. CDC website. Accessed. Nov. 3, 2016. https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html Coombe, Rosemary J. 1996. “Embodied Trademarks: Mimesis and Alterity on American Commercial Frontiers.” Cultural Anthropology 11 (2): 202–24. Counihan, Carole. 1999. The Anthropology of Food and Body: Gender, Meaning, and Power. New York: Routledge.

76

Counihan, Carole, and Penny Van Esterik. 1997. Food and culture: a Reader. New York: Routledge,. Second edition 2008. Couric, Katie, Mark Monroe, Michael Brook, and Stephanie Soechtig. dir. 2015. Fed Up. Los Angeles: Atlas Films. Netflix. Douglas, Mary. 1972. “Deciphering a Meal.” Daedalus 101 (1): 61–81 Dixon, Helen G., Maree L. Scully, Melanie A. Wakefield, Victoria M. White, and David A. Crawford. 2007. “The Effects of Television Advertisements for Junk Food versus Nutritious Food on Children’s Food Attitudes and Preferences.” Social Science & Medicine 65 (7): 1311–23 Folkvord, Frans, Doeschka J. Anschutz, and Moniek Buijzen. 2016. “The Association between BMI Development among Young Children and (Un)healthy Food Choices in Response to Food Advertisements: A Longitudinal Study.” International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity: 13. Foster, Robert J. 2007. “The Work of the New Economy: Consumers, Brands, and Value Creation.” Cultural Anthropology 22 (4): 707–31 Freidl, Erika. 2002. “The Anthropology of Childhood.” Anthropology News 43 (5): 19–19. Garro, Linda C. 2010. “Beyond the Reproduction of Official Accounts: Parental Accounts Concerning Health and the Daily Life of a California Family.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly 24 (4): 472–99. Garth, Hanna. 2012. Food and identity in the Caribbean. London: Berg, 2012. Gaudio, Rudolf P. 2003. “Coffeetalk: Starbucks™ and the Commercialization of Casual Conversation.” Language in Society 32 (5): 659–91. Genius7277. “1950s-1970s Trix Commercials”. [Filmed 1950-1970]. YouTube video. 8:10. [Posted November 28, 2010]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7Mals1CUfc Gentilcore, David. 2016. Food and Health in Early Modern Europe: Diet, Medicine and Society, 1450-1800 . London: Bloomsbury Academic, an Imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

77

Goldberg, Marvin E. 1990. “A Quasi-Experiment Assessing the Effectiveness of TV Advertising Directed to Children.” Journal of Marketing Research 27 (4): 445–54 Greenhalgh, Susan. 2015. “Disordered Eating/Eating Disorder: Hidden Perils of the Nation’s Fight against Fat.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly 00 (0): 1–18. Haikarate4. “Old Cereal Commercials - 50’s Compilation”. [Filmed 1950s]. YouTube video 6:17. [Posted October 16, 2014]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbOoQdarTZw Harris, Jennifer L., Jennifer L. Pomeranz, Tim Lobstein, and Kelly D. Brownell. 2009. “A Crisis in the Marketplace: How Food Marketing Contributes to Childhood Obesity and What Can Be Done.” Annual Review of Public Health 30 (1): 211–25. Herbst, Sophia. 2014. “1,200 Calories”. Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sophia-herbst/1200-calories_b_4816597.html Hollis, Time. 2012. Part of a Complete Breakfast: Cereal Character of the Baby Boom Era. Gainesville : University Press of Florida. Karrebæk, Martha Sif. 2012. “‘What’s in Your Lunch Box Today?’: Health, Respectability, and Ethnicity in the Primary Classroom.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 22 (1): 1–22 Kawash, Samira. 2013. Candy: A Century of Panic and Pleasure. Farrar, Straus and Giroux: New York. Kemper, Steven. “How Advertising Makes its Object”. In Advertising cultures. edited by Timothy Dwight deWaal Malefyt and Brian Moeran 35-54. Oxford: BERG, 2003. Kingsley, Chris. January 17th, 2017. “The Dark Side of Subliminal Advertising” Food Advertising. http://darksidesubliminal.blogspot.com/p/food-advertising_26.html#.WPlhuVMrIWo Klein, Wendy and Marjorie Harness Goodwin. 2012. In Fast-forward Family: Home, Work, and Relationships in Middle-class America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013. Kulick, Don, and Anne Meneley. 2005. Fat: The Anthropology of an Obsession. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin,.

78

Lancy, David. F. 2008. The Anthropology of Childhood: Cherubs, Chattel, Changelings. New York: Cambridge University Press Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson.1980. The Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lareau, Annette. 2003. Unequal childhoods: class, race, and family life. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lerner, Adeline. 2016. “How Food Advertising Drives Gender Inequality”. Food and Gender. https://blogs.brown.edu/amst-0191z-s01-spring-2016/2016/05/04/how-food-advertising-drives-gender-inequality/ Levi-Strauss, Claude.1964. “The Raw and the Cooked: Introduction to a Science of Mythology,”. In: Mytholo giques: I. Le Cru et le cuit, II. Du Miel aux cendres, III. L'Origine des manires de table. Paris: Pion, 1964-1968. Lien, Marianne Elisabeth. 2003. “Fame and the Ordinary: Authentic Constructions of Convenience Foods”. In Advertising cultures. edited by Timothy Dwight deWaal Malefyt and Brian Moeran 35-54. Oxford: BERG. Locher, Julie L. PhD, William C. Yoels, Donna Maurer, and Jillian van Ells. 2005. “Comfort Foods: An Exploratory Journey Into The Social and Emotional Significance of Food.” Food and Foodways 13 (4): 273–97. Lynch, Clinton. “90’s Lucky Charms Commercial”. [Filmed 1990s]. YouTube video, 1:05. [Posted June 26, 2012]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foghWSflbIA Malefyt, Timothy Dwight deWaal., and Brian Moeran. 2003. Advertising cultures. Oxford: BERG. Mazzarella, William. 2003. “‘Very Bombay’: Contending with the Global in an Indian Advertising Agency.” Cultural Anthropology 18 (1): 33–71 Mead, Margaret. 1928. Coming of Age in Samoa. New York:William Morrow.

79

Mead, Margaret. “The Problem of Changing Food Habits”. 1943. In Food and Culture: A Reader. edited by Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik. New York: Routledge: 1997. Second edition 2008. McGinnis, J. Michael., Jennifer Appleton. Gootman, and Vivica I. Kraak. 2006. Food Marketing to Children and Youth: Threat or Opportunity? Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press. Mintz, Sidney W. 1996. Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom: Excursions into Eating, Culture, and the past. Boston: Beacon Press. Mintz, Sidney W., and Christine M. Du Bois. 2002. “The Anthropology of Food and Eating.” Annual Review of Anthropology 31 (1): 99–119. Miller, Daniel. 2003. “Advertising, Production, and Consumption as Cultural Economy”. In Advertising cultures. edited by Timothy Dwight deWaal Malefyt and Brian Moeran 35-54. Oxford: BERG. Moeran, Brian. 2014. “Business, Anthropology, and Magical Systems: The Case of Advertising.” Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings 2014 (1): 119–32. Ochs, Elinor. 1988. Culture and language development: language acquisition and language socialization in a Samoan village. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ochs, Elinor, and Tamar Kremer-Sadlik. 2013. Fast-forward Family: Home, Work, and Relationships in Middle-class America. Berkeley: University of California Press. Ochs, Elinor, and Bambi B. Schieffelin. 1984. “Language Acquisition and Socialization: Three Developmental Stories”. In Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion. Richard A. Shweder and Robert A. LeVine. 276– 320. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ochs, Elinor, and Carolina Izquierdo. 2009. “Responsibility in Childhood: Three Developmental Trajectories.” Ethos 37 (4): 391–413. Ochs, Elinor, Clotilde Pontecorvo, and Alessandra Fasulo. 1996. ”Socializing Taste." Ethnos 61, 1-2: 7-46.

80

Oldies Vids. “Cookie Crisp Commercial”. [Filmed 2005]. Youtube Video, 0:29. [Posted August 17, 2005]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeVTGTFJc-M Olsen, Barbara. 2003. “The Revolution in Marketing Intimate Apparel: A Narrative Ethnography”. In Advertising cultures. edited by Timothy Dwight deWaal Malefyt and Brian Moeran 35-54. Oxford: BERG. Patico, Jennifer and Eriberto P. Lozada Jr. 2016. “Children’s Food” In The Handbook of Food and Anthropology. Edited by Jakob Klein and James L. Watson. Bloomsbury Academic: New York. Parasecoli, Fabio. 1997. “Feeding Hard Bodies: Food and Masculinities in Men’s Fitness Magazines”. In Food and Culture: A Reader. edited by Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik. New York: Routledge: 1997. Second edition 2008 Pilcher, J. M. 1998. ¡Que vivan los tamales! Food and the Making of Mexican Identity. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press Popenoe, Rebecca. 2004. “Ideal”. In Fat: the anthropology of an obsession. Edited by Don Kulick and Anne Meneley. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin. RetroGoop. “1st LUCKY CHARMS Cereal TV Commercial 1966 Cartoon”. [Filmed 1966]. YouTube video. 0:48. [Posted March 15, 2010]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lc3rcodUuKg RetroGoop. “Lucky Charms Cereal TC Commercial 1972”. [Filmed 1972]. YouTube video. 0:33. [Posted May 15, 2010]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vcx9qTTVL3s Schacht, Ryan. 2012. “Cassava and the Makushi: A Shared History of Resilience and Transformation”. In Food and identity in the Caribbean edited by Hannah Garth. London: Berg. Shankar, Shalini. 2015. Advertising diversity: Ad agencies and the Creation of Asian American consumers . Durham: Duke University Press. Spock, Benjamin. 1957. The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care. New York: Duell, Sloan, and Pearce.

81

SSReel. “Lucky Charms Reel”. [Filmed 1966]. YouTube Video. 2:06. [Posted April 23 2012]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uamb4FPPe5U Stinko Rama. “Trix Cereal: The Great Frutini”. [Filmed 2014]. YouTube video 0:31. [Posted July 17, 2014]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhV7MEmJlwI Story, Mary, Karen M. Kaphingst, Ramona Robinson-O’Brien, and Karen Glanz. 2008. “Creating Healthy Food and Eating Environments: Policy and Environmental Approaches.” Annual Review of Public Health 29 (1): 253–72 Sunderland, Patricia and Rita M. Denny. 2003. “Psychology vs. Anthropology: Where is Culture in Marketplace Ethnography?” In Advertising cultures. edited by Timothy Dwight deWaal Malefyt and Brian Moeran 35-54. Oxford: BERG, 2003. The Age of Plenty. 2010. BBC, Accessed November 14, 2016. http://fod.infobase.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?wID=103018&xtid=75348. The Seventh-day Adventist Church. 2007. Accessed December 13, 2016. http://fod.infobase.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?wID=103018&xtid=39049. Thomas, Keith. 1997. Health and Morality in Early Modern England. In Morality and Health. Edited by Allan M. Brandt and Paul Rozin. New York, NY: Routledge. “Trix Product List”. Last modified 2014. General Mills. http://www.generalmills.com/en/Brands/Cereals/trix/brand-product-list Warde, Alan. 1997. Consumption, Food, and Taste: Culinary Antinomies and Commodity Culture. London: Sage Publications. Wilson, Margaret. 2004. “Indulgence”. In Fat: the anthropology of an obsession. Edited by Don Kulick and Anne Meneley. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin. Wtcvidman. “1995 General Mills Trix Commercial”. [Filmed 1995]. YouTube video. 0:29. [Posted June 4, 2010]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0FAqJMYsTc Wutaii1 Nostalgia. “Cereal Commercials 80s and 90s (1-10)”.[ Filmed 1980-1990s]. Youtube Video, 5:05. [Posted August 7, 2015] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7SAuD2v0kM

82

Wutaii1 Nostalgia. “Cereal Commercials 2000s (1-10)”. [Filmed 2000s]. Youtube Video, 4:36. [Posted August 2, 2016]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAmn1-Zn7dc Wutaii1 Nostalgia. “Cereal Commercials 2000's (11-20)”.[ Filmed 2000s]. Youtube Video, 3:51. [Posted August 2, 2016]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IlYFBkhgrQ

83